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Published: November 30th 2008
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This man is putting the large sheets
of paper into the cutter, where they'll eventually end up as steno pads. He had to get the paper squared and get the right amount into the cutter...and he's totally bllind. The tape on his finger is not because he cut it, it's because the paper continually slides across that spot. (Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center)
Happy Thanksgiving, tomorrow! The camp is closed Wednesday through Sunday, so we had a two day work week!
When we first got to Talladega I said this is a surprisingly small town; I expected a city, because we’ve heard so much about Talladega Superspeedway~~a famous NASCAR track. The population is a little over 17,000 but the shopping area is small, with way too many empty store fronts, and the residential area is spread over a large area. Many of the residents work in Birmingham. Talladega doesn’t give the appearance of a thriving community. It does have a section of fast food/Walmart-type stores, although that’s small, too. One really fun part of it is the “square”. The downtown stores are built in a square, with the court house in the middle of the square. It’s like the stories I’ve read that were set years ago. The sad thing about Talladega’s square is that it has so few businesses left. The towns in this area all have squares, and most of them that we’ve been to are still active. The idea of a square and everyone shopping there and visiting is a pleasant idea.
Also,
I can't remember this man's name,
but he was so funny! All the people were friendly, and wanted to talk, but this man was funny! Here he's trying to teach Nancy to do his job! (He still has it, and she's still with RVICS!) Talladega is home to Helen Keller School, a school for deaf and blind students of grade school and high school age. Many of the kids are residents, and some are day students. I was surprised to learn that this is the area where she grew up. There’s also a school for the blind and mentally challenged adults, where they learn a skill, and again, they have a program for residents, and bus service for those who can live in the community. Alabama Industries for the Blind is located in Talladega, and we took a Friday tour through there. It was so incredibly interesting, and humbling at the same time~~the employees there do so much with so little, and I feel like we do so little with so much. But the Industry is aimed at helping the blind and vision impaired earn a living. They make all the neckties for every member of the military, along with their flight bags, aprons for different food service businesses, US flags, and many different types of writing pads and art pads. The paper came in on monstrous rolls, and then went through printers to give it lines for writing or graphing or whatever its
Talladega Spuper Speedway
is just outside town. Sadly it\'s off season and we couldn\'t find anyone around to find out when it\'s open, so we didn\'t get to see the inside of it. purpose, and then cut down, step by step, to whatever size it needed to be. That part really surprised me, not that I wasn’t impressed to see blind people sewing on machines with little or no adaptation. The people could tell put just the right amount of paper through the cutter just by feeling. The paper products they put out under the name Skilcraft. If you look on the back of your steno pads, and composition books, you’ll be surprised how often you see the name! They make the large charts that are used in classrooms and meeting rooms. It was so interesting to watch them work, and to visit with them. Nobody that I visited with visited and worked at the same time~~they were either talking with us, or working, but not trying to do both. Might be a lesson there for me! The supervisors were sighted, but the huge majority of the workers were not. The Industries here also produces cotton mops, where the workers were stinging and cutting the strands! They have a silk screening department, but we didn’t tour that. They have a store that’s open to the public that targets teachers with paper products and
printer ink supplies, along with their brooms and mops and shirts made at that site. They silk-screen school uniforms, which made me think the public schools wear uniforms, but instead, the private schools do, and there are many many private schools.
Because of the education and employment opportunities for the handicapped people, it’s very common to see blind and deaf people in the community. Very common. They can ride to and from work on school buses, so you see school buses on the streets from early morning (or so I’ve heard!) until way after dark.
Our tours on this project have been on atypical days. One tour was to the Honda plant; you didn’t hear about it because I didn’t go! I was doing a 24 hour stomach bug thing instead. We also “toured” one night when we went to a fundraiser for the local food pantry. They had three well-known comedians (not well-known to us) but they were funny! It was a semi-dressy and a fun time. We didn't have a tour this week because of Thanksgiving, and next week is our last week. The tour committee had it easy this time!
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SARA!
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Mom, you put the most unique pictures on your blogs! I like the little tiny tree :)