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I decided to join the braille program because I need to stop my past.
I don’t want to do the things that I did to bring me here to Mountain View again
and I feel that if I have a trade or some education that it’ll benefit me and help so that I don’t do that whenever I do go home.
Having this program, it’s teaching me about the society,
and about, you know, other people with disabilities
and it kind of helps you to be not so selfish,
because I had to realize that I was a very selfish person. I never thought I was, but now I’m realizing that I was.
Every little cell, makes up braille. If you do it well, it will make you feel swell.
The opportunity that we have here is awesome because it is a win-win situation for us.
I learn a skill that I can take home and, perhaps, enhance and make money on
and be successful, but also, I’m helping someone.
I guess the clique is that they have the world at their fingertips, and literally it is
because their hands are their windows and how they see things, and we provide that for them.
For example, I do a lot of the tactile stuff and I just think I’m showing or helping somebody see the world like this.
I’m helping somebody see the globe, so I think it’s awesome.
It’s a win-win situation. We’re truly blessed to have to have the opportunity for it.
Every little cell, makes up braille. If you do it well, it will make you feel swell.
I think I’m getting more and more in love with the braille program. At first, it was a major challenge.
But as I go on and there’s more confidence building, it’s teaching me accuracy and organization.
Definitely confidence building because you look at this stuff and you’re like that’s a challenge
and it’s just so much information but its teaching me to stay focused so it’s doing a lot for me and I’m really appreciating it and love it a whole lot.
It has given me a completion of the business of braille.
Because, you know, so far I have learned the technical part of it.
But, when I think about doing this at home, you know there are a whole lot of other things that you have to think of.
It is the most rewarding feeling.
It just gives you a purpose that has a great meaning in life.
It is a motivation that helps me to get up everyday and say that I am going to have to do this and I am going to do it right
because there is somebody out there that is going to be satisfied.
When they realize that they are actually producing work for someone outside this facility
that gives them a whole new pride about themselves
because they realize that this is going somewhere.
It is not washing clothes for the unit, it is not preparing the food for the unit.
This is actually teaching them a skill for when they get out that they can use.
Everyone wants to come into the program
because the offenders that are in the program, they have so much love and passion
that they carry it out onto the unit with them and everybody sees
and everybody sees and everybody talks about the success stories that Mountain View braille offenders released have
and everybody wants a chance to change their lives, to do something that benefits themselves, their family and other people.
I love braille. Ms. Billman is braille Mom. She has helped me. When I first started here it was hard for me to focus.
I wanted to do information technology, but I believe that through divine intervention, I need to be braille transcribing.
My hometown is Rochester, New York where the National Braille Association is,
so she’s like, well that’s not a coincidence.
She has really been inspiring.
She has really helped me stay focused and she has been very, very patient with me.
Every little cell in my body is happy. Every little cell in my body is swell.
It is so swell, every little cell in my body is happy and well.
When I came here I thought my life was over.
And I thought, “this is, this is it”.
And I have never, all these years, it’s been 16 years.
I would have never thought that God would have taken my life and turned it around like he has.
Ms. Billman and Ms. Nixon are awesome.
Ms. Billman always comes down here and has some funny story for us, but she is also a good teacher.
Ms. Nixon is so patient, and I just want to tell them thank you.
Ms. Nixon, she’s kind and she is determined to make you get it,
and she don’t quit until you get it.
Even if she has to pull you to the side or whatever she makes sure you get it
so with the type of encouragement that they give us, it stirs up a determination in you not to let them down.
Ms. Billman was the creator, the original cookie of this program.
She was the one that came up with the idea of doing something in this big warehouse.
She does this, this hard work for us, not for her.
Her satisfaction comes from seeing us succeed.
Because of that, a lot of us want to succeed to make her proud of us.
It’s kind of like a mother-daughter relationship.
Thinking about going back to the society is very scary.
I know that there is a lot of people that are going to reject me,
have difficulty accepting me back.
Being able to do something that is going to help me to support my kids and me,
and being at home, it makes me feel safe.
That this is going to touch many, many lives
and people’s lives are going to be changed, like mine was.
I am anxious to get out there and do something.
I am anxious to get out there and do something.
Ready? Ok!
Give me a P! -P! Give me an R! -R! Give me an O! -O!
Give me an F! -F! Give me an I! -I! Give me a T! -T! Give me another T! -T!
What’s that spell - PROFITT!