AKA The Blind Banquet
Saturday April 2,2011
Fort Langley Golf Club
This is the first of what we hope will be an annual fundraiser for the Langley Pos-Abilities Society to enable the society to carry out its mandate to provide assistive devices for all people resident in Langley who cannot fund them by any other means along with advocacy and education in and of our community.
Part of the education process is a technique we started, called “Try on a Disability” in which we create a disability in an able bodied person so that they might experience what it might be like to have that disability – thus the blind banquet. Initially there would be a cocktail hour where everyone can mingle and look at the items in the Silent &Live Auction.
Then when dinner is announced each person will be blindfolded and escorted to their table. At each table will be host and hostesses who will guide the participants through their meal. Friends will be encouraged to sit at different tables for the meal to be able to experience the challenges that a blind person faces every day. All those volunteers will be trained by CNIB for this task. The purpose of the exercise is to promote the understanding of what it might be like to be blind. We do not intend to scare anybody or create a dangerous situation.
Following the dinner the blind folds will be removed and the live auction will take place. We have three speakers (short) one who is blind and rode in the Tour de France, one who is a Paralympian, and the spouse of someone who is blind and will talk on what they must do to accommodate the blind person. During the banquet we intend to have background recorded music and following the speakers Angelic Visions will entertain us. and the Silent Auction will close.
The venue is beautiful; the decorations will be exquisite and the dinner delicious.
We would like to emphasize the blind concept such as “love is blind” and/or “Blind Date” Every year we are planning to host another event and feature a different disability.
This year we will have a personality from CTV to MC the event. We believe that a lot of people would be interested in this unique occasion.