By: Seth Johnson
After making a significant impact on the Central Indiana community through its No Limits Art Series over the past six years, the Indiana Blind Children’s Foundation (IBCF) will now expand the program’s focus going forward to align more with input gathered from the foundation’s Gaps Analysis, with plans to regularly hold engaging creative arts programming across the state for youth who are blind or have low vision and their families, as well as the community.
After being awarded the Strengthening Indianapolis Through Arts and Cultural Innovation grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc. in December 2018, IBCF, in partnership with Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI), launched the No Limits Art Series in 2019 with a performance in the school’s auditorium from recent Grammy nominee Matthew Whitaker. Following this performance, the No Limits Celebration continued with a virtual performance from bluesman Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton in 2021. The Celebration then returned to the ISBVI auditorium in 2022 to welcome Grammy award-winning fiddler Michael Cleveland and his band Flamekeeper.
In 2023, the No Limits Celebration continued at ISBVI with a performance from esteemed singer-songwriter A.J. Croce, whose father was the beloved folk-rock troubadour Jim Croce. IBCF then moved the No Limits Celebration to Butler University’s Schrott Center for the Arts in 2025 due to the start of construction on ISBVI’s forthcoming co-located campus with Indiana School for the Deaf. For the event’s 2025 installment, IBCF welcomed recent Grammy nominee and 2024 USA Woman of the Year, Lachi, who treated attendees to a keynote concert that intermingled engaging stories with her heartfelt songs.
Over the course of hosting the No Limits Celebration, IBCF has received all kinds of great feedback from attendees via post-event surveys. Following the 2022 No Limits Celebration, for example, one attendee wrote, “This event - from start to finish - inspired me to be more watchful of ways that I can help make our world a more accessible place.” After the 2023 event, another attendee wrote, “It gave me a new perspective on what accessibility is and the need for it.” Most recently, a 2025 attendee wrote, “The experience deepened my understanding of how important community is, and how powerful it is for youth with disabilities to have adult role models with similar lived experiences. It deepened my understanding of both the importance of self-advocacy and of what an impact people with disabilities in positions of power make.”
In 2024, IBCF set out to build a clear understanding of the needs, resource gaps, and opportunities for school-aged blind and low vision youth and their families across Indiana. To achieve this, IBCF engaged the trusted, Indiana-based consulting firm Taylor Advising from late 2024 through 2025 to conduct a statewide Gaps Analysis, a process which included gathering insights from over 200 stakeholders—including students, families, educators, service providers, and national experts—through surveys, focus groups, and interviews, and conducting national best-practice research. As part of this analysis, one of the most common gaps identified by stakeholders was a lack of social supports for students and families. In order to better serve children and their families across the state, Taylor Advising suggested that IBCF and ISBVI may consider creating formalized family engagement workshops and events tailored to families of children with blindness or low vision. Specifically, Taylor Advising stated that IBCF and ISBVI may choose to organize workshops, parent weekends, meet-ups, family camps, and playdates for children and their families.
As a result of these findings, IBCF will now shift the structure of its No Limits Art Series to better serve children and their families across the state, transitioning the series from a fundraising structure to a programmatic structure. To help students and their families be more connected going forward, IBCF, in partnership with ISBVI, will curate creative opportunities for students and their families to participate in at least twice a year, if not more. These opportunities will take place at different locations across the state, beginning with a series of workshops in Indianapolis and Lafayette to be led by visual artist John Bramblitt in mid-February. Stay tuned for more information on these workshops in the coming months.
In addition to this No Limits Celebration programmatic expansion, IBCF is also excited to share that the No Limits Leadership Club is set to make a shift of its own, as students have begun working with audio description company MindsEye, which has a significant history of improving access in arts and sports organizations in St. Louis, but is now working with the Indiana Pacers. Having previously worked alongside staff at arts organizations like Conner Prairie, the Eiteljorg Museum, Heartland Film, and more to provide each arts entity with feedback on how they can be more accessible, the No Limits Leadership Club will now provide feedback to MindsEye, which is working with an NBA franchise for the very first time to provide those who are blind or have low vision with audio description of basketball games. Stay tuned for updates on how the students are impacting the work of MindsEye via our social media accounts, and be sure to watch this video for a better understanding of the audio description services MindsEye is providing at the Indiana Pacers games.
