Wednesday, February 28, 2007

It gets lighter, lighter, and lighter!

When I started this project, I was many many things at the same time. I wore many hats. The hats I had were office manager, peer counselor, advocate, fundraiser, treasurer, and educator. Over the 8 plus years, I was able to cultivate loyal volunteers who took responsibilities away from me and therefore I ended up being the fundraiser chair.

Finding and cultivating loyal volunteers was a big challenge as our agency was seen as a weed in someone elses territory. But I suceeded at that. And I had to weather a lot of interesting flak from our competitors who'd sometimes use our volunteers to try sabotage our agency a few times. I'm very happy I was born with my mother's thick skin. Not only that, we have a procedure for dealing with these scourges and they havent failed yet. That's something I cant share at this time.

What comes in the future is change and that will bring more challenges. Rather than marketing ourselves to the community we serve, we market ourselves to the community that also serves them and we're reaping the benefits from collaborations like this.

Basically we've gone from being a screaming access fighter to a dependable access provider and the economic benefits from doing so are thunderous. The society likes us better this way.

And the personal benefits is that I get to spend more time home, more time with my family, more time taking care of myself, and less time dealing with pressures of running a battleship.

Richard Roehm
CEO

Monday, February 26, 2007

OCDAC Newsletter February 25, 2007

Dear Friends,

The latest fundraising action by the Gallaudet University in connection with the Sorenson Language and Communication Center shows they're not getting the message from the deaf society that American Sign Language has a place in the future of deaf society.

The National Center on Disability and Access to Education has released tips and tools on web captioning last December. It is very important that deaf "vloggers" as video-bloggers make their messages accessible to the hearing society if they wish to demonstrate that American Sign Language has a place in the future of deaf society. If the deaf society wants the hearing society to appreciate American Sign Language, then they're going to have to include the hearing society in their audience by making their vlogs accessible to them. More information about web captioning down the newsletter.

We are excited to announce were getting a third heavy duty copy machine donated to us this coming Monday. This will enable us to mass produce deaf awareness and safety education materials. We can now put them up on our eBay store for others to get them and educate their local communities.

Deaf Awareness Education Booklets


Deaf Safety Education Booklets

Come join us for a special shopping day on May 11, 2007 at Community Shopping Day at Macy's South Coast Plaza. Tickets are $10 each and entitles ticket holders to a 15%-20% off of almost everything* at Macy's South Coast Plaza plus a chance to win a $500.00 Macy's shopping spree. Please see flyer and order form at http://www.deafadvocacy.org/events/MacysCSD2007.pdf for more information on the event and purchasing tickets.

We are getting ourselves ready for the big education campaign of 2007 with the kickoff at the Orange County Mixer in March.

To read the rest of the newsletter CLICK HERE

Friday, February 09, 2007

OCDAC Newsletter February 7, 2007

Dear Friends,

Recent news suggests that Jane Fernandes is already reaping the golden field of martyrdom. Deaf or hard of hearing people who get crucified by deaf culture are instant martyrs and they end up in stronger and higher places in society. Other deaf martyrs are surfacing and making news as well. All deaf martyrs need to know they can come out of hiding now and be open about their experiences with the wrath of deaf culture, the ball is in their court now, the playing field is theirs now, the society is theirs to use now! COME OUT NOW!

We have been given a small box trailer to expand our advocacy, education, and fundraising programs. This will make us capable of doing many more booths and be able to do booths in a very short notice. See the work on the trailer http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocdac/sets/72157594511746908/ and give us a hand. This will also means less problems with Uhaul that we've been having in the past 2 years.

We are getting ourselves ready for the big education campaign of 2007 with the kickoff at the Orange County Mixer in March. We will need a lot of help in printing flyers and binding booklets.

To read the rest of the newsletter CLICK HERE