As the dog days of summer continue, the Council staff has been busy! All summer long, we’ve brought information about our services and resources to diverse communities across the Madison area. Here’s a little bit of what we’ve been up to in recent months. In June, we went to the UW South Madison Partnership for… Continue Reading Council Hits the Road to Reach Diverse Communities
This spring, the Council welcomed six volunteers from Exact Sciences into our offices to help with our efforts to make our space more inviting to all. The group spent their morning planting aromatic herbs in pots for our sensory garden; sprucing up the Sharper Vision Store by replacing old hooks to hold products; and organizing… Continue Reading Exact Sciences Volunteers Spruce Up Council Offices and Garden
Earlier this summer, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that local municipalities across the state can use drop boxes to collect absentee ballots. That decision overturned the 2022 ruling barring the drop boxes. This is a major win for voters with disabilities across Wisconsin. “Many voters, including those with disabilities, face barriers when casting their ballot,”… Continue Reading Ballot Drop Boxes are Once Again an Option for This Fall’s Elections
The Council’s 2021 Annual Report is now available online in PDF, Word and audio formats. The Annual Report provides an overview of the year’s highlights, along with a “by the numbers” section that illustrates the scope of what we accomplished in all of our key program areas over the course of 2021.
Have you ever heard a song on the radio and wished you knew the title and the artist who performed it? If you have a newer iPhone, you have a tool that can do just that right in your pocket. Recent versions of iOS, the operating system that runs the iPhone, have a built-in song… Continue Reading Use Your iPhone to Name That Tune
In 2021 the Wisconsin Lions, along with dozens of local branches scattered across the state, celebrated their 100th year of service. Several Council board and staff members are active in their local chapters, creating an informal bond between our organization and the century-old Lions, as we each work to empower people living with vision loss… Continue Reading The Lions Connection
The Council teamed up with Madison Audubon once again earlier this spring to present Birding by Ear, an education program we’ve been offering since 2018. This year’s class included an online educational session offered at two different times and two field trips to the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, located next to Lake Mendota on the UW-Madison… Continue Reading Birding by Ear was a ‘Model’ Program This Year
This month, the Sharper Vision Store added a new way to make it easy for customers to add a gift to the Council to their purchase. It’s called “rounding up,” and it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Suppose your total purchases add up to $19.27. The person ringing you up will ask if… Continue Reading A New Way to Support the Council: ‘Round Up’ Your Sharper Vision Store Purchase
We all want to age as safely as possible. But some hazards are hard to avoid as we grow older. Falling down is near the top of the list. Wisconsin has the unfortunate distinction of having highest rate of fall-related deaths in the United States, more than twice the national rate. According to the Wisconsin… Continue Reading Simple Strategies Can Reduce Your Risk of Falling
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Are you an artist living with blindness or low vision? Do you know someone who is? We are currently accepting submissions for Gallery Night 2024, scheduled for Friday, November 1. We welcome artwork in a wide range of formats. Last year’s display included paintings, photographs, digital drawings, knitted and crocheted pieces, wood carvings, ceramics, and… Continue Reading Showcase Your Talent at Gallery Night
We’re halfway through 2024, and the Council has accomplished so much already this year! But that’s no reason not to be excited about everything we achieved last year. Our 2023 Annual Report is full of the year’s highlights, including our advocacy successes, trends in vision services, our scholarship program, improvements we’ve made to our property,… Continue Reading Annual Report Now Available Online
We’re pleased to announce this year’s Council Scholarship recipients! Each year, we award $2,000 scholarships to several students from around the state who are blind or low vision and will be enrolled in post-secondary education in the fall. Past recipients have used the scholarship funds in a variety of ways to help fuel their college… Continue Reading Introducing our 2024 Council Scholarship Recipients