Thursday's Breakfast and Luncheons!

Submitted by NAD Conference [1] on Fri, 07/06/2012 - 12:19 Blog:

• NAD Conference [2]

RIT Breakfast

The Hyatt Regency Ballroom slowly filled early in the morning at 7:00am and featured a slideshow showing very recent photos of the NTID portion of RIT and recent graduates (one being former RIT SBG president, Greg Pollock) with their parents. The breakfast featured a buffet to which the attendees helped themselves to. Gerald Buckley then stepped on stage to express his thanks to the guests and NAD for their support.

We asked two people two questions:

• What do you think of the breakfast so far?
• What has NTID done for you?

Taylor Yukawa, Seattle, Washington, 4th year Finances Major, took the time to reply:

1. It's delicious, the scrambled egg with cheese and ham is to die for! Only thing that would make this better is more BACON.

2. RIT helped prepare me for the real world and made me understand how to access services.

Marc Roer, Chicago, Illinois, Class of '81 also replied with the following:

1. Better than the Dining Commons.

2. I didn't really know it at the time but looking back it truly set the foundation for my future. Because of that I was able to do anything I wanted and achieve my goals.

Gerald Buckley, Class of '78, and the current NTID President closed with, "NTID is proud to have a partnership with NAD for the promotion of the advancement of deaf people of America."

GLBT Deaf Equality Luncheon

The first ever Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Deaf Equality Luncheon was held at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom on Thursday, at 12:15 pm to 1:30 pm and was completely sold out. The ballroom filled up quickly, drinks and soup was served to all of the guests. The Emcee, James Brune, began with welcoming everyone to the luncheon and stated how pleased he was for NAD to support the first ever GLBT luncheon.

Brune went on with elaborating on the GLBT community and began introducing members of the community of whom were a part of NAD and all of the allies that came to show their support to the community and NAD. After the delicious salad lunch meal was served, Brune introduced the well-known Donalda Ammons on stage to present her story. Ammons is known most recently for being an Professor Emerita at Gallaudet University and being a traveling motivational speaker. Ammons' presentation floored a lot of the attendees with her story, which explained her experiences with her partner of 22 years and what they had to go through. She explained how a lot of the places, companies and medical care did not recognize their partnership because they aren't the typical married couple. She continued on how unfair it was for the GLBT community to have to go through this and encouraged attendees to get involved with promoting equality for the community.

Quotes from the GLBT attendees

Chris Wagner - New NAD President: 

We are really thrilled to have this luncheon, NAD truly wants to express how they support a diverse population of deaf people. NAD is here and supports the GLBT population and their issues.

Sean Gerlis - Former NAD Region One Representative:

A step closer to our diversity statement, we are making it a reality.

Blake Noland - Executive Assistant for DeaFestival Kentucky:

This luncheon truly shows that NAD is open minded and opening its doors to an entirely new group of deaf people.