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Hard to believe our summer programs are coming to an end. Today summer Earn & Learn students are finishing up their 40-hour internships across the Metro area. Not only do they gain valuable work experience – for some it’s their first paid job – but they travel independently to their job sites on foot and by public transportation. Jobs include retail, reception, food service, checking web accessibility, radio production in Boulder, child care and all the chores at a riding stable, among others. 

Christina, Keaton and Marie are working as interns for our long-time partners, this summer. In fact, it’s Marie’s second year in our summer program and working at The Right Step. Their work includes cleaning stalls, cleaning old horse shoes to be reused, cleaning tack and taking care of the horses.

This morning they cleaned tack and then helped put up new Braille labels in the tack room. That’s the subject of this short video.

As an FYI, each horse has its own bag with its very own curry comb and brush, halter, lead rope and hoof pick.

is a therapeutic riding program and the first of its kind in the U.S. to have Braille – not just in the tack room, but on the horses’ stalls too!

We’re still buzzing with the excitement of last Saturday. It’s not just the work, but it’s spirit of the folks who came and the shared effort!

Saturday, April 30 dawned to several inches of wet snow on the Center’s grounds, and temperatures in the mid-30s. The rain mixed with snow continued all morning and afternoon, but it was Comcast Cares Day 2016 and dozens of Comcast employee-volunteers and their families showed up anyway to work on our landscaping and other tasks. They came because they said they would, and because this event is one of the largest corporate-sponsored volunteer programs in the US.

It’s obviously the people – the employees and their families – who truly make it a huge success.

“It’s beautiful,” Kimberly McCutcheon said as things packed up before noon. “It would have taken us years to get all of this done!”

Here’s a brief video from Comcast Cares Day 2016. It’s a 360-degree look at volunteers at work outside at the ������ on the morning of April 30.

Twenty-four blind and visually-impaired Front Range youth spent the weekend of April 22-24 in Estes Park. It had been planned as a snow-shoe trip, but instead the kids and 9 adults took a 6-and-a-half mile hike in Rocky Mountain Park.

Henry Butler performance

Date and Time: Thursday, 02/18/2016 – 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Location: Littleton Campus – Waring Theatre (M2900)

Arapahoe Community College and the ������ will welcome acclaimed musician to the ACC Littleton campus on Thursday, Feb. 18, from 6:30 – 9:00 p.m. in the Waring Theatre.

The evening will begin with a “meet the artist” session from 6:30 – 7:10 p.m., followed by Butler’s performance from 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Butler will tour the ������ earlier in the day.

Considered the premier exponent of the great New Orleans jazz and blues piano tradition, Butler is a ten-time Pinetop Perkins (formerly W. C. Handy) Best Blues Instrumentalist Award nominee. A rich amalgam of jazz, Caribbean, classical, pop, blues and R&B, his music is as excitingly eclectic as that of his New Orleans birthplace.

9News will be with us at the Center for Colorado Gives Day tomorrow morning! Our long-time collaboration with National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) will be spotlighted between 5:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. on 9News. The NSCD Moves obstacle course will be featured in a couple of segments, with Center students and staff in action!

Be sure to tune in tomorrow morning to see NSCD and the Center, and don’t forget to make a donation on

The ������ uses innovative techniques to teach proven blindness skills to our students, but the secret to our success is the confidence our students gain in themselves – the confidence to take aim at their dreams and hit their mark!

December 8 is Colorado Gives Day, and you can help our students hit their mark with a donation on our CO Gives page at

Your donation on Colorado Gives Day qualifies for the $1 Million Incentive Fund offered by Community First Foundation and First Bank. The ������ receives a percentage of the CGD total!

Take aim at success!

Take charge with confidence!

Give where you live!

Colorado Gives Day

December 8, 2015

The “Shared Visions” exhibit at Arapahoe Community College’s Colorado Gallery of the Arts on November 19 and 20 was a big success, featuring numerous multi-media and very tactile paintings by students in Nathan Abels’ painting classes, as well as pottery pieces from joint activities between Center students in Ann Cunningham’s art classes here and those in classes taught by Katie Caron, Ceramics Coordinator at ACC.

In addition, the cooperative activities and exhibit were featured on the Breaking ������ YouTube channel in two videos. See what Maureen has to say and what she experiences:

For the second year, the ������ has partnered with MasterDrive to take students with sleep shades for practice driving in a dual-control car.

Our students always look forward to this training and test of confidence, and on Saturday six students got the chance to practice while MasterDrive instructors were in the passenger seat to keep them safe.

After a brief orientation on the physical configuration and handling of the car, students practiced in a parking lot with gradually increasing levels of challenge … till they were out on the access road, the speed limit sign obscured by tarps (for safety, not secrecy), and the students were navigating on their own and making adjustments.

“Is that 35 miles per hour?” one student asked, pointing.

“No. It’s much slower,” replied the instructor, with a light laugh and steady hands.

That brief exchange captures what happens during these sessions. Not many times does a student ask a question with a smile right after setting off on the road on their own.