A Trip To Washington To Advocate For The Blind
In this episode of the iCantCU Podcast, I talk about traveling to Washington, DC to advocate for the blind by lobbying congress. And you know, I can’t go anywhere without trying new restaurants, so I talk about them, too. Thanks for the tip, Guy Fieri! I also got a chance to visit the Museum of American Jewish Military History.
My Team
This year, I was teamed with Brian Mackey and Simon Bonenfant. Brian was our team lead and is the Treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania. He also serves as the affiliate’s webmaster. (He serves as webmaster for some other state’s affiliates, too.) Simon serves with me on the board of the Keystone Chapter of the NFB of PA. He is a junior in high school, though you certainly wouldn’t know it by talking with him. He hosts segments on the Blind Abilities podcast and podcast about blind travelers. We were on the same team last year. This was his eighth Washington Seminar. Did I mention he is 17 years old?
Meetings With Congressional Staff
We only had three meetings this year, but they were all very relevant. First up was a meeting with Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon’s (PA-5) staff. She is both my Representative and Simon’s, too. Next up, we made our way to the Cannon House Office Building for our last two meetings. After having a little trouble finding our way, we made it to Rep. Mike Doyle’s (PA-18) office. He represents the district in Pittsburgh where our state convention will be held this year. We ended our meetings with the staff of Rep. Dan Muser (PA-9). He is Brian’s Representative.
As with last year, we didn’t meet any Representatives, but, we did get some help from Rep. Tim Burchett (TN-2). He helped us to get to the Cannon House Office Building once we left Rep. Scanlon’s office. I actually thought he was delivering pizza or food and wasn’t a member of Congress since it seemed to be carrying pizza boxes. When he told us he was a member of Congress, I was surprised. Like the three Representatives from Pennsylvania, he was also a freshman.
National Museum of American Jewish Military History
On my last day before I left, I visited the National Museum of American Jewish Military History. I ended up there because we had received mail (addressed to the previous owner of our condo) a few days before I left for DC. I wanted to look around the museum to see if it might be a place to loan the shadowbox my mom had made up with all my dad’s POW artifacts. I enjoyed my visit to the museum but realized they’d probably want to dismantle the shadowbox and that would undoubtedly destroy some of the documents inside. The image below shows my dad’s POW camp records (he was held by the Nazis for about 13 months,) letters from the War Department about him being MIA and the Nazi spoon. Yes, that is the same spoon I made ice tea with when I was a kid.
