Honorable Council members,

Thank you for the wonderful proclamation. Lafayette, Heart of Acadiana is such a precious place for deaf-blind people to live. Here we have good accessibility to systems such as the transit systems, newly Community Advocacy Center for the Deaf Interpreting Agency (CACD), and Affiliated Blind of Louisiana (ABL) Training Center, but we still need one more priority - Support Service Provider (SSP) which plays a very important role to deaf-blind people. SSP serves as a ‘buddy system’ or ‘partner’ to guide deaf-blind residents to various places like the grocery store and/or medical office from hunger and illness. We hope one day that the City of Lafayette along with council members would consider funding SSP services to better the lives of deaf-blind people in Lafayette. As many of you may not aware of, Louisiana has the largest population of deaf-blind people in the United States, even in the world while Lafayette leads in the state. Before I come to a close, I would like to have my dear friend, Mr. Lynn Blanchard, Executive Director of ABL to give his short speech about deaf-blind at the ABL Training Center.

Cordially,

Dan Arabie

Chairman, Lafayette-local, Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week

Tuesday, June 26, 2007