By IBCF Communications Intern, Maria Quinton

Date: 6/26/17

This past April the ISBVI high school choir had a magical performance in front of nearly 370 Ossip employees at their 2017 Ossip Expo. Before their performance our Executive Director, Laura Alvarado, stood up before the crowd and introduced the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, ISBVI, High School Choir. This new audience learned about the mission of the Indiana Blind Children's Foundation, IBCF, and experienced firsthand the strengths of our students. What a spectacular day filled by the sound of our students' gifted voices, which evoked tears from many eyes in the crowd. It was the perfect opportunity to showcase their abilities with such a captivated audience. Thank you, Ossip + Ophthalmology and 502 Event Centre for a wonderful day; we had a grand time.

Click here to watch a short video from the 2017 Ossip Expo

In addition to raising awareness for ISBVI and IBCF, Ossip provided financial support for assistive technology at ISBVI. This donation made it possible for IBCF to purchase numerous Bluetooth accessible laptops and MacBooks for the students of ISBVI. One of the ISBVI students had this to say about the newly purchased laptops:

“I am a 16 year old braille student who utilizes technology every day. I use technology in most of my high school classes. When I attended public school, every student received a laptop. When I went there, I did not have a braille device to connect to my laptop. I had to use the screen reader in everything that I did because I was unable to use braille. It was bad because not everything was accessible. Bluetooth accessible laptops are helpful, especially if you use a braille device because websites, email, and document writing programs are more accessible. Bluetooth laptops connected to braille devices are useful because listening to a class lecture and a screen reader at the same time can be difficult, especially in math class! Being able to use braille will help a student’s literacy and spelling skills increase. Using a computer with a braille devices not only helps literacy skills, but it also promotes independence!”—K.R. Sophomore at ISBVI