July 2018 - Colorado Center for the Blind

Is summer really coming to an end? Our Summer Earn and Learn Students finish up their jobs Friday! #ShareLittleton

Beth at the coffee machine behind the counter at Dirt Coffee

Yes, summer is racing to its conclusion, especially for our Summer Earn & Learn students. for the past two weeks these high school-aged students have been work and getting paid. For many, it’s the first job they’ve had. For others, like Beth in the photo above, it’s her first job since becoming blind a year ago.

How important is that first job for our blind youth? A sense of success, of confidence in their capabilities, and some cold, hard cash in their pockets? Yes, yes and yes! Simply, every great career has to start with that first job or internship. Since blind youth too often don’t get those kinds of opportunities, we create them with the help of our friends and neighbors in Littleton and the greater metro area. So this is also a shout out to all of them! Thanks for helping get our 2018 youth off on the right foot!

Primrose Preschool of Littleton, Emily
The Right Step (Littleton), Brett, Cheyenne & Morgan
Arapahoe Community College ELearning Center (Littleton), Lexi & Jake
Arc of Colorado (Littleton), Layla & Anthony
Pawcus Foods (Federal Center), Kameron & Luc
Dirt Coffee (Littleton), Beth
Audio Information Network of Colorado (Boulder), Michael
CCB Senior Program, Nicholas
CCB Front Desk,Luisa
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (Littleton), Madyson

Luisa takes a phone call at the Front Desk at the Colorado Center for the Blind

Brett inspects fence posts that need to be replaced at The Right Step Horse Ranch

Cheyenne counts how many fence posts need to be replaced at the Right Step Horse Ranch

Anthony checks to make sure all of the clothing on the racks have tags at the Arc Thrift Store

Lexi works with a laptop on components for a movie script

Maddy sorts through stacks of paperwork at Trinity Lutheran Church

Morgan looks at a fence post that needs to be replaced at the Right Step Horse Ranch

Nick teaches Susan how to read Braille in the Senior Program at the Colorado Center for the Blind

Luc sprays off large pans in the kitchen

Kameron runs a large hotel tray through a commercial dish washer

Layla works with a rack of shirts making sure all buttons are fastened and all of them have tags at the Arc Thrift Store

Please Bear with Us – It sure Ain’t Paradise, So We’re Rebuilding It, Not Just Paving It!

We hope you’ll bear with us this summer with a project that will result in some dust, noice and truck traffic on neighborhood streets. Construction caution fencing is already going up around our parking lot as a projected 87-day construction project begins today.

As the photos show, the Colorado Center for the Blind’s parking lot has deteriorated badly in recent years. Rather than simply repave, we decided to use the opportunity to do more than just lay new asphalt. The total project will put utilities underground, upgrade parking lot lighting, provide more walkways and landscaping around the parking area, build a concrete dumpster pad to withstand heavy trucks, and reconfigure the front of the building and the sidewalk approaches to it. Time to complete the planning and permitting processes for this project are the reason we let it go so long.

Beginning on July 5, the parking lot surface will be removed as much as 8 inches, followed by weeks of new compacting of gravel before concrete work on the walks are completed and the new paving can begin.

This means heavy equipment in the area and dump trucks coming and going in the neighborhood as they first haul away the old material and then begin bringing in new material. It also means that we’ll be replacing the sidewalk, curb and gutter in front of our property all along the north side of West Shepperd Avenue, requiring barricades for that purpose at different times. The heaviest of the truck traffic on neighborhood streets should be done by early August, though there will still be cement trucks and asphalt trucks till September.

Following the parking lot repaving, we’ll close off the main entrance of the Center to deal with utilities and a reconfiguring of the sidewalk approaches from both Shepperd Avenue and our new parking lot. The walks wwill also feature new lighting.

By the time it all wraps up in late September, we hope our neighbors will agree that it was worth the disruption with a new and more attractive look out front that we can all enjoy!