Page 26 - Lions Link 11-18

Celebration at Dallas White Cane Safety Day 2018
Blake Lindsay and Nia MacKay, PhD
On Monday October 15th, 2018 the extraordinary celebration with North Texans with visual impairment was well- attended. The White Cane Safety Day festivities began at 10:00 A.M. and continued until 1:00 PM at the Dallas City Hall’s rotunda, downtown Dallas. This year was the 54th anniversary for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s appropriate White Cane Day proclamation. Deputy Mayor Adam Medrano has the honor to read the proclamation. Even though this celebration endured the first rainy White Cane day in several years, the event was a memorable success. Over 100 adults from the Dallas area, and 15 students from Dallas Independent Schools were delightfully impacted during the celebration.
Lion Blake Lindsay open the program by praising and gratefully thanked the biggest supporter for the Envision Dallas Lighthouse for the Blinds, the Oak Cliff Lions Club, and other generous donators. He personalized his friendly talk show environment with the guest speakers. A few of the highlights of those wonderful presenters were parents who are totally blind raising sighted children, Mike Doocy a long time supporting enthusiast of Envision Dallas Lighthouse for the Blind from Fox News Sport, Eric Burton-who currently sees his surroundings through the ‘Aira’ representatives eyes, Lion Dave Jeppson from Colleyville LC and Executive Director of Computers for the Blind, Ted Harper from American Council of the Blind Dallas Chapter who sponsors broken cane exchange and scholarship for blind students, Lion 2nd Vice Governor Billy Ketner-representing District 2- X1 Lions Club, Chelsea Nguyen-an Image Consultant who taught vision impaired person to groom and put makeup themselves, and Paul Shields-member of the US Association of Blind Athletes, a paracyclist who just started to do a triathlon.
Ashton Hecker from Raising Cane Chicken Finger which provide lunch for all attendees that day, said that it’s part of the Raising Cane core values of being active and involved in the community and that he saw a lot of wonderful things the Dallas Lighthouse of the Blinds has done for our community with its assistive technology and education program. He’s always excited to be part of this celebration. Several free raffle items were being giveaway at the event, including a computer, courtesy of Computer for the Blind.
Attending the auspices celebration were four Dallas Oak Cliff Lions, and Lion Alice Velasco, MD, White Cane Project Coordinator for District.
White Cane day (L-R) Lions Alan Shrock, 2nd VG Billy Ketner, Sheryll McKay, Blake Lindsay, Nia MacKay, and Charlene Vezina
VOLUME 29 ISSUE 5 / NOVEMBER 2018 PAGE 26