On Saturday the St. Landry Parish Veterans Memorial was the
recipient of a special gift made possible by the Ortego Family: Brad, Sharon, Emily & Sarah.
The special gift of A BRONZE BRAILLE AMERICAN FLAG to be placed in the
Bobby Dupre Welcome Center is a patriotic and educational endeavor, not only for the blind and visual
impaired veterans, but for all. It is estimated that America has more than 30 million blind/low vision
veterans and citizens. At the presentation was Blind Veterans Association representative, Gary Schoelerman, special guests and St. Landry Parish Veterans Memorial board members.
The braille flag is a fully tactile graphic accompanied with a user key that aides the blind in denoting the orientation, and colors of the American flag’s stripes, stars and blue field. It also contains the Pledge of Allegiance in raised print and grades one and two Braille. It was created by Randolph Cabral, president of Kansas Braille Transcription Institute, in Wichita, Kansas, to honor his dad a WWII veteran that lost his sight.[1]
The Braille flag was endorsed by the Blinded Veterans Association during its 61st Annual Convention in Buffalo, New York, in 2006.
