SignWriting List
September 10, 2014

Hello my friends -

May I share with you for one moment?

I am writing grants to support our SignWriting work. Here in San Diego, the workers at different businesses come together to create small foundations so they can donate to local non-profit organizations. I think they are wonderful people!

Imagine if you were an electrician, working for the Electric Company. The company has an “Employee-Giving-Program” and all the workers donate a small portion of their pay to put into the fund, so they can help local charities or non-profits.

So I started applying to one of the Employee Giving Networks this week, and a lady there, who manages the fund, had provided funding for us two years ago - This group has given to us 6 times over a 15 year period...

This year she explained to me that two years ago, she showed the employees the ASL Wikipedia and they were bowled over (very surprised and overwhelmed). Since they do no know sign language and cannot imagine writing it….It took them a long time to understand it, and then ended up funding the computer equipment we needed because they didn’t know what to make of the issues of deafness or writing ASL (smile ;-)

I didn’t realize until today what a hard time this nice lady had, in trying to convince them to fund us two years ago…they did fund us for the computers and of course we are grateful for that…

And now she wants to convince them again, but it is brand new group of employees apparently who have never seen SignWriting before…

So I am writing to ask a favor …

I need some new “letters of recommendation”.

Here are some of the great letters from the past:

Letters of Recommendation from 1999
http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs1/sw0015-Researchers-Say.pdf

and Gerard Meijssen wrote a great letter in 2008 - may I use it Gerard?

And thank you to all of you who have written letters on SignWriting’s behalf before…

Below are the questions…a paragraph from her letter to me:

She wrote today:

On Sep 10, 2014, at 10:43 AM:
> 
> Additionally, It has been a few years since we began supporting the development of SignWriting; so this year, I think we should provide a way for the council to get a feel for the impact this technology is having on individuals who are deaf.  We (previous councils) have understood the value in this technology, now it would be a good time to communicate examples of how it is changing lives.  Understanding the impact and engaging with the results will fuel confidence in supporting the SignWriting mission going forward.  We can talk more about this AFTER you submit the application, at the point where the council is ready to learn more.


So…how is SignWriting changing lives? How are different SignWriting projects changing lives?

Thanks for your help -

Val ;-)

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