Helping the Blind, Cross Finish Lines

Blind Start of America was created and founded in 2006 by Brian Tom, who is a visually impaired entrepreneur. He and his team created the first blind/blind-folded mud run as well as the first blind/blind-folded Dragonboat Cup known as the Blindstart Cup. From being the first blind dragonboat racing team at the annual Long Beach Dragonboat Festival to becoming a nationally ranked Dragonboat team, Blindstart has liberated blind

individuals by allowing them to join a blind Dragonboat team to helping raise awareness of blindness in America by speaking at a variety of seminars. Blindstart's mission is "to provide scholarships for blind and visually impaired persons (VIPs) to develop job skills to enable them to ultimately lead lives of independence. These scholarships provide education, training, communication, transportation, adaptive equipment and technology."

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So how can we help? In the upcoming year, our club will be volunteering at a variety of BLINDSTART events ranging from their weekly Dragonboat practices to the annual Blindstart Luau as well as past events such as the 4th of July Tamale Booth to the Long Beach Dragonboat Festival. After being able to volunteer at both the

Tamale Booth as well as the Dragonboat Festival, I sincerely hope that if you have the chance to go to any BLINDSTART event, you definitely take that chance because those at BLINDSTART are some of the kindest and inspiring people.

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Throughout this upcoming year, our club will be collaborating with BLINDSTART in regards to volunteering at their upcoming events as well as helping publicize events and fundraisers for them! Being able to connect with a local non-profit organization is definitely something our club definitely wants to pursue within the following year as we are able to even make a larger impact within our community and also be able to connect

with those around us on a deeper level.