Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to a bonus edition of the More Than Blindness podcast. I am Ed Worrell and with me, as always, my co combatant,
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Misty Allen. Thank you for having me, Ed. Happy White Cane Safety Day.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: I know it's a big holiday for us blind folk.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: It is indeed.
So we wanted to give you guys this special little bonus episode to talk about the launch of our brand new campaign, the Great Montana White Cane challeng.
It is starting today, October 15, 2026, and will be running through until the Montana association for the Blind state convention in 2027, which will be September.
I was hoping to touch on the importance of the symbolism of the White King for those outside of the organization or the community.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Excellent.
So the. The white cane has often been used as a symbol to represent independence and access for folks within our community for decades and decades.
The first time that we receive our white canes is the first time that we really have the ability to open up that front door and confidently and independently get out into the world and face the challenges that are ahead of us there.
So the white cane has often been used to represent these ideas by many different organizations for a very long time. There are records with MAB actually of us celebrating White Cane Safety Day and putting outreach and fundraising campaigns around that.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Since 1952, there's been some really interesting programs to celebrate and to promote the use of the white cane that we've done over the years.
I remember actually seeing one that they used to do, these little white cane pins that they would actually go around to businesses and banks and that and collect donations for. And if you donated, you got one of these little pins. So there's a long, rich history of MAB celebrating and bringing awareness to the white cane that we use every day.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Exactly. So I guess the first question we've got is, what's it all about? What's the point of all this? What is the goal the organization is? This is our first time to have. Well, since I've been involved, to have a statewide outreach and fundraising campaign that includes every single chapter. How's all of us coming together? I'm sure we have had some in the past as well. It's just I'm new.
But we have a financial goal by September to pull in $50,000. I would like everybody to imagine a map of Montana.
If we start on the Idaho, Montana border, every $50 that we receive, we'll move our cane one mile across the state until we get to the end on the North Dakota border with the 50,000.
So every little bit that people do to promote this campaign helps to move independents across Montana.
Secondary question I suppose would be what's the money going to be used for the way that this will work? I'm here in the Rimrock chapter in Billings.
So if I were to go out and approach someone and they give me $100 to help with this campaign, $40 or 40% of whatever I bring in will go towards my personal chapter here in Billings. We would use that money to fund social events, outreach opportunities.
Personally, we'd probably put a great deal of it towards our state convention that will be here in Billings next September. Because those tend to be a bit pricey.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: They are a bit pricey. Yeah.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Just a little bit because he just did that.
So 60% of what we bring in will go towards our state programs.
We offer quite a few different programs, training programs for blind and low vision individuals here in Montana. We've got our summer orientation program that runs for one month in the June, July time period. We also have the Life Learner Retreat down in Bozeman that is a monthly week long program as well as the OPW and I can never remember what it stands for.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Orientation program workshop.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Thank you.
And that one tends to be more themed. It may be advanced, it may be family oriented.
Those are one to two times a year. Is that accurate about the state?
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Usually one time a year for around a week. And it looks like it will be after the summer program this year. We don't have exact dates just yet, but it'll be in that likely that month of July.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Beautiful.
All of these different programs help to train orientation and mobility daily life skills as well as some fun and recreational activities and budgeting and all sorts of things that help people who are losing their vision or have recently lost their vision gain independence in their own lives.
The money will also be used to help fund our scholarship program to help blind and low vision individuals who would like to further their education. Okay, so the question that everybody likes to ask is what's in it for me?
Everyone who gets involved in this campaign benefits from the businesses, to the individual chapters, to the statewide programs and to the individuals who are not even a part of MAB yet, but may want to get involved in what we have to offer the community businesses if they can choose a tier at which they would like to participate in the program, from $250 to over $50 or to over $5,000. Each tier allows for different amounts of promotion and acknowledgement for their support.
In this program on our website, social media platforms and our in house publications, the Chapters themselves will have more funding to be able to run the events that they have locally.
But also there will be awards. There are three different awards that will be offered for participating chapters.
One of them is for the overall financial investment that they're able to pull in. Another award will be for the largest number of businesses and organizations they are able to contact and help educate about our program.
And finally, for some chapters, it's a little bit more difficult. We have such a diverse number of members per chapter, so we may have some that have 10 members, whereas another may have 50.
If you have 10 members in your chapter and every single member participates in this program, then you will have 100%, whereas someone with 50 who only has 10 people participating in has only got 20%. And so there are awards for the amount of participation with your membership.
So, yeah, that is.
That's what I've got. Ed, what are you. What would you like to bring in as far as the YP Challenge?
[00:08:38] Speaker A: I think this is a really good fundraising effort to go statewide. Like you said, as long as I can remember, this is the first one we've tried since I've been involved, and I've been in the MAB for just over 16 years.
So I think it's a really good effort for us to spread awareness and bring, you know, more, hopefully more recognition to the Montana association for the Blind around the state with this fundraiser.
So a big part of what we do is getting the word out, because, like places like Montana, we really rely on word of mouth.
So if we can get out there and talk with businesses, talk with individuals, talk with groups, and get them involved through the awareness side of the program, it's really just as good as fundraising money.
It kind of just brings it all together of being able to tell a story and tell what the MAB is all about. So it's.
It's really important that we get out there and tell businesses and individuals how much the Montana association for the Blind has helped us in our daily lives, or even with.
Since it's White Cane Day, a lot. Those three programs you mentioned have a lot to do with orientational mobility. That's a mandatory class for all three of those programs. So it is definitely a good way to promote independence and being more independent in the community by celebrating this and starting this on White Cane Day.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yes, I guess. I guess people may want to know, how can I get involved?
You have a landing page on the website, right, for.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you want to get involved with the Great Montana White Cane Challenge, you can go to the website mabsop.org and it's right there on the homepage. You click on the link, It'll take you to the informational page or landing page for the white cane challenge in Montana.
And then it gives you all the information businesses can donate. There's direct donate links for certain amounts, different cat, different levels of sponsorship for businesses and even individuals. So it makes it really easy. You just click the link. It takes you to our payment system that we're using for our donations.
And if you don't want to donate that way or want to contribute in a different way with the program, the contact information for our main office is down below at the bottom of that page. So there's lots of ways to get involved, and we really encourage our members and even local community members and local businesses to check out that page and get involved and help us out.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Our executive director has done an excellent job putting together packets to help chapters figure out how to accomplish this campaign. It's a big one. It's running for a year long, Keeping the motivation going, keeping everybody excited and invested.
She's put a whole lot of work into this. There are documents that she's created to be able to take to businesses.
There are many, many different ways to do this.
So some of it may be approaching local organizations that we have connections with in our communities. Some of it may be local businesses that we want to approach. Some of it may be talking to friends and family about whether or not they're able to sponsor, as well as an optional walk in may for any chapter that wants to participate in that or member.
All of these are different ways that you can decide to implement within your area how you would like to be involved in this campaign.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. No, and I think, just thinking out loud on it, I think the great falls chapter was actually really interested in considering doing a white cane walk of some sorts. And that event in May, if we can get other chapters involved, I think that could be a good way to get a fundraiser going. I think that's one of the easier ways to get community outreach and involvement is to do something like that.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: It's hard to ignore a group of at least five canes, isn't it? Oh, absolutely.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Most, yeah. It's hard to ignore the white cane, let alone, you know, two or three of us. Five, six, maybe ten of us. Oh, yeah, we're definitely a sight to behold.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: We will draw the eye for sure.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
So I.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: This is a good point for us to pop into what our tip for the day is going to be. Our. Our td. I don't know. We can have a TD today.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Tip for the day.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Tip of the day. Yeah, Tip of the day.
The the importance of your personal story. We have talked about this a great deal within our organization over the past year.
How important it is for you to share what your story is. It is more impactful for you to walk out and say, this is how I became involved with mab. This is the role that MAB has played in my life. This is why it matters. These are the lives that it affects. So when you are going out and you're speaking with people, whether it's friends, family, businesses, strangers, if you can integrate what this means to you, your personal experience, that makes a huge difference in letting people know what it is that they're stepping behind. Why this. This is important.
I would also say on the other side of that, if you are someone who has never known someone who was blind, who has never been exposed to these types of organizations, and someone does approach you, please feel free to ask. We are happy to tell our story.
If you want to know, you know well, have you participated in these programs? What is your experience with that?
That creates a great foundation for us to know what we're working towards, what our value system is.
It helps people know what our mission statement is and can really help spread the word on why the Montana association for the Blind is important to the individual blind and loyal people within Montana.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's one of the big things in our organization is that's so valuable is the story of how something like the summer orientation program or Life Learner Retreat program, even opw, or even just getting together with a bunch of blind people at a chapter meeting.
Those stories are impactful.
Like you had previously said, sometimes there's. You run into people. Whether that's on purpose or not, that's another story.
You might run into people out in public that have never interacted or. Or talked with somebody that's visually impaired, blind or low vision.
And it's really important to be able to tell your story. Or if you're going into a business and helping fundraise or doing an awareness walk or something like that, it's important to know how to communicate your story.
And a lot of times it simply starts with, hello, my name is Ed Worrell and I'm a part of the Montana association for the Blind chapter here in Great Falls.
That is a great icebreaker. And then I usually will tell people. I've been involved with the organization since 2010. I was a student at the summer orientation program for two years.
And halfway through the first, second year, I became an instructor.
And that's really where I became heavily involved with the organization is becoming an instructor when they asked me to teach Apple computers one year because they had nobody else to do it.
And this program has set me on a path for not just as an individual, but professionally, and it has helped me become who I am today.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: And there's your story.
It doesn't have to be, it does not have to be super complicated, over embellished or anything. You just tell them what it is in, you know, five to 10 seconds because if you're talking to them really more than 10, 15 seconds, you might lose their interest, unfortunately.
So make it quick but, you know, make it make up, tug at their heartstrings a little bit.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Well, your personal story matters. The the reason that it matters to you is the reason that it will matter to someone else.
So please feel free.
I encourage you strongly to stop by the website, check out the launch page that is going to be there.
If you have further questions, you can contact myself or Ed, you can reach out to our administrative assistant, Melanie Beagle, or our executive director, Jocelyn de Haas. All of your district representatives should have the paperwork as well and be knowledgeable so you can contact them and encourage your chapters to take part in this great campaign this year, help move independence across Montana.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: And last of all, I just wanted to thank everybody for listening to our bonus episode.
You can find our podcast on all of the podcast services, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, you can listen with your Alexa device, your iPhone, wherever you want to listen. You can take it with you and listen on the bus if you want to. So please, please go listen and help us spread the word by listening to the podcast.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Thank you, Ed.
