From: Peter Donahue 
Subject: guide dog school hollidayt card photos
hello Fellow Federationists and listers,
I posted this idea here several nights ago, but am not sure that it made it
to the lists so hear it is again for your thoughts, and actions in the
coming year.
Many of our guide dog shools make it a tradition to thank their supporters,
and to raise funds by selling holliday greeting cards.  More often then not
the photos on these cards feature one or more cute adorable guide dog
puppies in a holliday setting.  Has anyone figured out what is wrong with
this picture?  While these sceens are attention getting, and eye catching
they do nothing to promote the normallity, and independence of the blind.
Those who receive such cards are not reminded that with proper training and
opportunity, the blind can live normal lives, and that blindness is only a
physical nuisance, and that the highly trained guide dogs produced by the
schools they are supporting help to make this possible.  I say that it's
time that we corect this picture, and call upon the guide dog schools to
issue greeting cards that show the dogs in their real role as guides for the
blind.  Now what would be wrong with a card that pictured a group of blind
carolers with their guide dogs singing to an audience, or perhaps some blind
people accompanied by their guide dogs walking down a snow-covered street
past shops decorated for the season, a blind Santa Claus  with his guide dog
lying by his side talking to children asking them what they want for
Christmas, or a sceen in a store of a blind person making a perchase and his
dog is lying quietly on the floor while he is transacting his business at a
check-out counter.  such portraits will not only allow the schools to show
their appreciation to their contributors, but will reinforce in the minds of
those who receive such greeting cards that it is respectible to be blind,
and that we are just like them, and that there is no mystary about
blindness.  Now let's get em in the year to come.
Best wishes from Mary and i for a happy holliday season.
Peter donahue
          
---
 # Origin: NFBnet  Internet Email Gateway (1:282/1045)
---------------