Four-Star Hotel. For Free. For Real!

A whole slew of generous hotels across the United States are participating in this very cool Give a Day, Get a Night program — if you give eight hours of community service to a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization, you can stay overnight at a participating hotel — for free! Sounds too good to be true, but I tried it. And it’s for real!

To qualify, your volunteer hours have to be completed between July 1, 2009 and March 29, 2010. You call a participating hotel, tell them when you want your complimentary room, and then all you have to do is show up at check-in with a letter on non-profit letterhead verifying your eight hours of unpaid volunteer service, and…you’re in!

That's Hanni and me luxuriating in our lovely Blackstone room.

Hanni and I volunteer for a literacy program called Sit! Stay! Read!, and the volunteer coordinator was happy to provide me with the letterhead note I needed. Hotels in San Diego, Portland, Denver, Las Vegas, Tucson and countless other cities participate in the program, but I decided to stay right close to home. I booked a room at the Blackstone, a 99-year-old four-star hotel on Michigan Avenue that was recently renovated. Here’s a description from a magazine called “Hotels:

The extensive nature of the renovation shows in many of the details, including the richly detailed brass wall sconces that McHugh refinished in many public areas. When originals could not be salvaged, the team worked with specialty contractors to cast molds to create duplicates. In other historic portions of the hotel, McHugh removed decades-old carpeting to find that the marble floors underneath had been damaged by carpet tacks. Fortunately, the team was able to repair the floors by salvaging the hard-to-match marble from other areas of the hotel where it would not be visible.

While large-scale reconstruction of a century-old building is bound to turn up unexpected issues, the most significant one was positive, said Brian Hardy, McHugh’s project manager for the Blackstone work. “The biggest surprise of the building was that it is unbelievably well built,” Hardy said. “It’s extremely sound, structurally.”

I can vouch for that soundness — I somehow managed to bang my forehead on one of those structurally-sound surfaces in our room. Ouch! Not to worry – the room service folks deliver ice to each room every night, you know, when they bring your bedtime chocolates!

I wondered how I’d be received–staying free, and all–but the Blackstone staff knew exactly what the Give a Day, Get a Night program was all about, and they seemed tickled that someone was taking them up on the offer. Hanni and I were treated like gold; so many of the staff helped us out in oh so many ways. One of them, named Arturo, was especially kind. He escorted Hanni and me all the way to the nearby Starbucks to pick up our morning coffee, stayed with us as we ordered, held my coffee cup as we got back into the hotel elevator and accompanied us all the way to the sixth floor.

Arturo marveled when Hanni led us off the elevator and guided us right to room #610. We had fun discussing how Seeing Eye dogs are trained, when it’s okay to pet them and when it’s not, stuff like that. Before he left I fished in my wallet for a tip, but Arturo refused the money. “This was my pleasure,” he insisted.

But the pleasure was all mine. A big thank-you to the Blackstone and to Sage Hotels for sponsoring this generous program. And an especially huge thank-you goes out to Sit! Stay! Read! for giving Hanni and me the privilege of volunteering.

Can You Take Your Fake Eye Out for Us?

The kids at Schechter were great listeners...and they asked some great questions.

Hanni and I did a presentation at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Skokie, IL right before Thanksgiving. The kids were great fun, they were very curious about how Hanni does her job, and how I manage to do all the things I do without being able to see. The hour flew by so quickly we didn’t have time to answer all their questions. Sensing the disappointment in the room, I suggested they email me. “Send me all your extra questions,” I said. “I’ll use my talking computer to write you back.”

The notion of a computer talking to me struck them as very cool, and two different classes took me up on the offer. Both email messages were downright endearing, and hearing my talking computer read the second one, all the questions running together in a stream-of consciousness robotic voice, gave me a laugh. The email is a perfect example of the sorts of questions I get from kids when we do school presentations:

Thank you for coming to our school. You are both very cute. If you ever come to our school again, can you take your fake eye out for us? You write the best books I ever read. What is your middle name? You are the first blind person I ever met. Did Hanni ever make a mistake? I have a dog named Mocha. What is your favorite candy? Thank you for coming to our school telling your wonderful stories. We had a great time meeting you. Did you have a great time meeting us? Please thank Mike for bringing you to school and helping you too. with love and thanks, The Children of 2B

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know the answers to most of the questions the kids asked. Except for that one about the fake eye, I guess. So many of the questions I get come from a question another kid asked earlier. The fake eye question in the email, for example –this was a pretty bright group of kids, so I decided in my presentation to explain the laser zaps I had to my eyes to try to save my vision, and then all the surgeries I’d had later.

After a series of regular questions, you know, does your dog sleep with you in your bed, that sort of thing, one boy asked, “Do your eyes hurt?” It was such a sweet, caring question. I reassured him right away that no, usually my eyes do not hurt.

“But here’s something you might not have guessed,” I said. “One of my eyes –my right one –is fake.” I told them sometimes that fake eye gets sleep in it, or teeny bits of dirt or dust in it. “And when that happens, then yes, my eye hurts. I have to take it out and clean it!”

Hence the “Can you take your fake eye out for us” question in the email message. When I wrote them back, I answered like this:

Answer: Hmm. Maybe. I guess we’ll just have to “see”!

Visiting Chicago Public Schools

I wonder. If I could see, would I have been afraid to visit the Chicago public schools Hanni and I went to these past couple weeks? Volunteers drove us to each school we visited, and we were so busy discussing the kids I was about to meet that no one mentioned what the neighborhoods looked like outside the car window. It wasn’t until all three visits were over that I did my research. Turns out we were in neighborhoods I hear about in gut-wrenching stories on Chicago nightly news. Little Village. North Lawndale. East Garfield Park.

Thanks to the generosity of my publisher--Blue Marlin Publications--all the kids who participated in Sit Stay Read went home with a free copy of "Hanni and Beth, Safe & Sound."

At one school, I was told the kids never get to go out for recess. “Gangs,” the teacher told me. “Too dangerous for them to be outside.

Safe inside the schools, the kids were like any others their age. They wanted to know how old Hanni was. They told me stories about older relatives who were losing their sight. One girl raised her hand and said, “I think you’ll like this poem.” It was one of her favorites from the third-grade reading textbook. “I’m going to read it out loud to you.” She did. And she was right. I loved the poem. After I explained how Hanni looks both ways for traffic before she leads me across downtown streets, a third-grader had a question. “Is your dog brave?” he wondered. His question reminded me. We were in a rough neighborhood. This little boy probably knew firsthand how hard it can be to be brave sometimes.

Two of these schools Hanni and I visited participate in a literacy program called Sit Stay Read! (SSR). In order for a school to participate in Sit Stay Read!, 95 percent or more of the students enrolled must qualify for the National School Breakfast program. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Center for Literacy helped Sit Stay Read! design the program to coordinate with school curriculum — it’s meant to improve children’s reading fluency, encourage them to become successful readers, inspire them to explore the world through books, and help them learn to respect people and animals.

The school we visited in Little Village wasn’t part of the Sit Stay Read! program. There’s a waiting list for schools who’d like to participate. The Little Village school would certainly qualify: Every single kid at that school participates in the National School Breakfast program, which means every single kid at that school is from a very poor family.

Here's just one of the thoughtful, handmade thank-you cards I received from the kids I visited.

My friend Pam teaches science at that school, so I offered to come with Hanni and talk to the kids about the senses. They must have really been listening! Days after my visit a package came in the mail. Each student had carefully glued yarn onto construction paper to create words I could read using my sense of touch. “Thank you, Hanni and Beth” and “It was nice having you.” Feeling the letters reminds me that there’s more to those neighborhoods than gangs and crime. Kids live there, too. Thoughtful kids. Resourceful kids. Sweet kids.

Wanna be a Seeing Eye Instructor?

Last Thursday Hanni and I gave a guest lecture for an animal sciences class, and some students came up afterwards to thank me for explaining how Seeing Eye dogs are trained. “I love dogs,” one of them said. “Now I’m thinking maybe I could be a Seeing Eye dog instructor.” You know what? Maybe she could!

From the Seeing Eye Web site:

Staff instructors are full-time employees who hold college degrees from various fields of study and have successfully completed three years of specialized on-the-job training. They relate well to dogs and people and are physically fit, since their jobs are physically demanding and involve working outdoors in all weather. Some of our current instructors came from teaching, business consulting and rehabilitation fields. Some were in the military and worked with dogs before, and many started out as kennel assistants here at The Seeing Eye.

A Seeing Eye trainer demonstrates how dogs learn to negotiate obstacles.

When people ask me about training guide dogs, I always remind them that they won’t just be working with dogs. They’ll be working with people, too. We blind folks are all different ages, and we have all sorts of different backgrounds and experiences behind us. Some of us are newly blind and still adjusting, others have been blind our entire lives. Although some of us might be easy to work with, a lot of us are brats. We test our teacher’s patience.

The Puppy Place (a Web site created by a group of volunteers who raise puppies for guide dog schools) says it well:

Guide Dog trainers must work with a variety of dogs within a given size range. A great deal of walking and upper body strength is required to mold hyper young dogs into responsible workers. In the beginning, when working with dogs alone, this may not seem bad, but soon the apprentice must team dog training with people training. You can’t leash correct your blind student, or give him/her a dirty look and expect the undesired behavior or wrong actions to stop. You must verbally communicate while physically managing to keep up with the dog. Coming out of yourself to work with both dogs and people is a special skill and not one to be taken lightly.

Schools receive literally hundreds of applications a year from people who want to train guide dogs, so even opportunities to become an apprentice are rare. Most guide dog schools do require instructors to do an apprenticeship, and some apprenticeships last as long as four years. From my observation, apprentices work very hard. And from what I hear, salaries are quite low. I have no idea what people are paid once they pass the apprenticeship and become full-fledged instructors. Considering that guide dog schools are non-profit organizations, I would guess the pay is far below what a lot of today’s college educated people expect to earn.

If you’re looking for job satisfaction, though, this kind of work must be pretty dang rewarding! For general information about working for The Seeing Eye, contact:

Human Resources
The Seeing Eye
P.O. Box 375
Morristown, NJ 07963
or email jobs@seeingeye.org.

Beautiful Topeka

The kids at the Easter Seals Capper Foundation Kidlink preschool were a great audience. (Photo courtesy of the Topeka Capital-Journal)

A story in the Capital Journal does a beautiful job describing our visit to Topeka last week.

Jim Leiker, president and chief executive officer of Easter Seals Capper Foundation, explained the purpose of Finke’s visit to Kidlink, which is an inclusive
preschool and child care program for children with or without disabilities.

“She has a disability and has lots of challenges,” Leiker said, “and she has lots of goals and dreams, and she’s been able to achieve those. I think that’s a really positive message for the kids.”

The Capital Journal also took a lot of terrific pictures of me, Hanni, and the kids — here’s the gallery.

In addition to visiting the preschool, we were given a tour of the other facilities and did a talk at Capper’s all-staff meeting that day. We had lunch with folks who’d helped sponsor our trip, then gave a keynote at their advisory board dinner that night. It was a lot to pack into one day, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Hanni and I were treated like gold. This was our first trip ever to Kansas, and trust me, it won’t be our last!

One of our many stops during our Topeka visit was speaking to the Easter Seals Capper Foundation Advisory Board. I signed books after the event.

The next morning, Hanni and I climbed way in the back of a shuttle van for a two-hour ride to the Kansas City International airport. Hanni snuggled in so close to my feet that anyone who got on after us had no idea she was there. In Lawrence, we picked up a passenger who seemed, hmm, how to say it. Sketchy? Down on his luck? He’d come to Lawrence in a Greyhound bus from Colorado, needed the ride to KCI to catch another Greyhound bus to some other town.

The shuttle van was pretty full. Reluctant to let this guy sit alongside any of us in back, the driver ushered him to the passenger seat right in front.

Ours was the first stop at the airport. We let the passengers seated in front of us get out first, and then finally I asked Hanni to get up and lead us off the shuttle van. As we exited, the Greyhound rider looked back and said, “Hey! I saw you on TV last night!”

I’d almost forgotten. A couple of TV cameramen had been there the day before, taking video images of our visit with the preschoolers.
I laughed and told him I’d missed the news. “How’d I look?”

“You looked beautiful!”

That made my day. What a snob I’d been, thinking this guy was sketchy. Obviously, He was quite sharp! And hey, he had a good eye, too.

On Wisconsin

Showing the girls how the harness works.

I spoke at the Milwaukee Montessori School last Wednesday, so I missed out on all the Olympic frenzy going on back here in Chicago last week. The Montessori mom who volunteered to drive Hanni and me back to our hotel after the presentation was the only person to even mention Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. The mom worked for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and the organization was hopeful Chicago would get the Olympics in 2016. “You took the train here, right?” she asked. I nodded. “So you know. Milwaukee is only an hour-and-a-half away from Chicago.” Her association was hoping tourists might opt to stay in Milwaukee, take the train to Chicago for the games by day, head back to a peaceful retreat by night. Milwaukee would benefit without footing the outrageous Olympic bill.

I was in the hotel lobby working on my laptop when the announcement was made about Chicago losing the Olympic bid. I heard no collective sighs. People there had never assumed Chicago would get the bid, so they weren’t shocked to hear the news. They might have been disappointed, but they didn’t act like the Chicagoans I was hearing about in the news. I didn’t sense anyone in the Milwaukee hotel lobby feeling angry. Or cheated

That’s one – of many things – I love about Wisconsin. People there are sensible. Kind, too. I stayed up there a few days after my Montessori School visit to work on my writing. The seclusion worked. I made good progress on two new books, and rewarded myself with occasional breaks to listen to the incomparable Bob Uecker call Brewers’ games on my transistor radio. Hanni and I felt downright carefree during our three-night stay, everyone there was so willing to guide us when we’d come to the lobby for a change of venue, or when Hanni needed to go outside for breaks. The hotel staff also recognized when Hanni and I were doing fine on our own, so they’d leave us alone.

Another reason I love Wisconsin? Our son lives there, in Watertown. After driving there to visit Gus Friday morning, Mike headed over to Milwaukee to spend the night with Hanni and me at the hotel. We had such a great time in Wisconsin that we’re going there again this Friday. This time, though, we’ll be heading to Madison. Hanni and I are doing a presentation at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison on Saturday morning, October 10 at 10:00. The theme for this year’s festival is Courage.

Presenter(s):
Beth Finke,
Katie McKy
Two writers who’ll appeal to kids from ages 4-8. Themes of courage in the face of disability/difference, and the courage to be oneself. Wolf Camp, by Katie McKy, is a comedy of parents’ unconditional love as their kids try on different skins. And Beth Finke returns with Hanni, her beloved Seeing Eye dog, to talk about the courage they both exhibit every day.

Gus’ house in Watertown is about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee, so it’ll be easy to stop in and see him again this weekend. On, Wisconsin!

Gus, Hanni and I--in front of the Hank Aaron statue outside Miller Park on a previous visit to Milwaukee.

What Happens When Seeing Eye Dogs Retire?

“How much does Hanni weigh?”

That was the first question asked after our presentation at Jackson Middle School in Orlando Friday. Not a bad question, really. Just one I hadn’t heard after any of the talks I’d given before.

Seems every time we visit a school, one of the kids in the audience comes up with a new question. If I think it through later, I can usually figure out why that particular subject matter came up.

Take the time I went to Hendricks School on the south side of Chicago, for example. The kids there came from families with low incomes, but they had the same curiosity, and they asked similar questions, as the kids I visit in well-to-do suburbs. You know, things like “How do you know if it’s time to wake up?” and “Is it scary being blind?”

Beth and Hanni both enjoy watching the White Sox. Illustration from “Hanni and
Beth, Safe & Sound.”

Hendricks is located near White Sox park, and since Safe & Sound has an illustration of Hanni and me watching a ballgame, the kids had all sorts of questions about that. “What if you got hit by a ball?” I told them we try to sit under netting. “What if there’s a hole in the net?” I told them Mike usually comes with us to ballgames, so he warns me if a ball is coming. “What if he is going to get hot dogs so he isn’t there and the ball comes?” The ballgame questions went on and on. And it was really, really fun.

Jackson Middle School in Orlando was not that different from Hendricks. I found out from teachers there that a significant number of kids who attend Jackson are homeless. With that in mind, I emphasized how important it is to find someone you can trust, I talked about the trust Hanni and I have in each other, how we work as a team. “We’ve worked together eight years,” I Said. “We have a strong bond. We know each other very, very, well.” Hanni is nine, I told them, and most Seeing Eye dogs retire at around ten years old.

The teacher broke in then. “What happens after they retire?” she asked. I explained my three options:

• I could bring Hanni back too the Seeing Eye, and they’ll find someone to adopt her, or
• we could find a friend who wants to adopt her, or
• we could keep her as a pet, and when I bring my new Seeing Eye dog home we’d have two dogs.

Later on LouisLuis, the boy who had asked how much Hanni weighed, had another question. I answered, then asked if he’d mind answering one for me. “How come you wanted to know how much she weighed?”

The answer was simple. He lived in an apartment where they only let you have dogs who weigh less than 45 pounds. “I was hoping I could adopt Hanni when she retires, but I guess not.” he said, the disappointment obvious in his voice.

LouisLuis is just one of many, many people who admired Hanni during our trip to Florida. She wowed the audience at our Playing by Ear session at the Early Childhood Association of Florida conference Saturday morning, and then again during our book signing at UrbanThink Bookstore that afternoon.

I had a lot of support from family and friends in Orlando. Among them Brian, Jennifer Amodt (Jen's my niece, Brian is her squeeze), and my nephew Robbie Amodt.

I’m composing this message using my laptop on our flight back to Chicago, still marveling at the wonders of technology: my computer is calling out the letters into my headphones as I type, even way up here thousands of miles in the sky.

Pilot just came on telling us to shut down electronic devices, gotta go. Oh, but in case you were wondering: Hanni weighs 63 pounds.

Marilee, She Rolls Along

Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Jackson Middle School in Orlando this morning. Know why? Because Jackson is an outstanding school. And know why it’s an outstanding school? Because my sister Marilee works there.

That's my big sister Marilee.

If you read this blog, you probably recognize Marilee’s name. She practically raised me, taking care of the house and making dinner for us every night when she was in middle school and high school; that’s when Flo had to start working full-time, our father had died and we were a single-parent household.

Lately Marilee has been accompanying me during book events at Printers Row Lit Fest and the American Library Association convention. She helps guide Hanni and me safely to our destinations, then makes sure everything is set when it comes time to sign, Braille and pawprint books.

Marilee is a wonderful sister. She is also a fantastic, dedicated, passionate educator at Jackson Middle School. From an AP article today:

Jackson Middle School is a school where most students are minorities and more than 80 percent receive free or reduced lunch, a measure of poverty. It has seen improvements in the percentage of students meeting high standards in reading, writing and math in recent years.

The VP and Education Secretary were at Jackson today to talk about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The vice president made his remarks at Jackson Middle School in Orlando, where he and Education Secretary Arne Duncan discussed the recovery act’s impact on education and the economy with a group of parents, teachers, students and administrators. Biden credited the stimulus plan with saving 26,000 school jobs in Florida, including 16 teaching jobs at the school he was visiting.

Hanni and I are going to be visiting that same school, Marilee’s school, and giving some presentations to students there at the end of September. It’s always a thrill to visit Marilee at work – she is highly regarded by teachers and students alike. I feel proud just holding her elbow as she guides me through the school hallways. She has always taken her role as an educator very seriously, going out of her way to attend conferences and take workshops and courses in order to learn all she can about education. She has heard Arne Duncan give the keynote at more than one of those events she goes to, so I know she was especially tickled to have him visit her school.

More from the AP story:

“What we tried to do is stave off an education catastrophe,” Duncan said. He called for raising expectations, including state standards that in some places are so low that even those who meet them are unprepared for college; encouraging the best teachers to go where they are most needed – including inner city and rural areas; tracking students and turning around failing schools.

In this instance, Arne was preaching to the choir. My sister Marilee is one of those “best teachers” he is talking about, and she already opted to work where she was most needed: at “a school where most students are minorities and more than 80 percent receive free or reduced lunch, a measure of poverty.” Marilee has been an integral part of turning Jackson Middle School around. I sure am proud of her.

Martha Speaks, Hanni Listens

That's Hanni and me at Daniel Street School in Lindenhurst, NY.

Is it March 31 already!? Seems like an April Fool’s joke! This sure has been a busy – and rewarding — month for Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound. In one month, Hanni and I visited five elementary schools, two libraries, one health education center, one teacher education center, and appeared at one author-illustrator night. We traveled by planes, trains and automobiles to New York, Michigan and various Illinois locations. Somehow, we always managed to make it home, you guessed it: safe & sound! While Hanni and I were traveling around talking to folks aboutSafe & Sound, experts behind the scenes were giving our book some attention, too. This month Hanni and Beth: Safe & sound was included on a new American Library Association list of about 25 or so “outstanding books that portray emotional, mental, or physical disability experiences.” It’s a thrill to have our book listed with all those other sensational titles. But the thrill doesn’t end there: in this same month of March, my publisher at Blue Marlin Publications got a message from the kids TV show Martha Speaks at WGBH in Boston. If you’ve never seen Martha Speaks on TV, you can link here to watch videos to see what Martha’s show is like. From the Martha Speaks web site:

Martha Speaks is an animated series on PBS KIDS. Aimed at viewers between the ages of four and seven, Martha’s educational goal is to teach kids new words. Based on the children’s book series by Susan Meddaugh and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the series stars Martha, a beloved family dog. She is accidentally fed alphabet soup — this gives her the power of speech and the chance to speak her mind to anyone that will listen.

The educational outreach program folks from Martha Speaks contacted my publisher to order copies of our book for a new program they’re testing out in Boston and New York City. Our book will be given to students in city schools, and if the pilot program works, a national rollout will feature Safe & Sound online activity guides and other online materials in conjunction with a Martha Speaks recommended book list. So if all goes well, more libraries and other organizations across the country will hear about Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound — as they say in TVland…stay tuned!

TVland

Hanni and I like to think of ourselves as divas, but I gotta admit – it’s pretty unusual for us to ever appear on television. And it’s very unusual for us to be on TV two days in a row. In fact, that’s never happened before. Until last week, that is.

Last Wednesday morning Hanni and I appeared live and in color on WTMJ-TV, the NBC affiliate in Milwaukee. And then on Thursday we were on WLS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Chicago! The Chicago piece was about the volunteer work Hanni and I do with Sit Stay Read!. To see that piece online you need to link to the ABC7 Chicago web site, go to local news, scroll down to “disability issues” and its right there.

Our Milwaukee appearance is easier to find – we appeared on a show called Morning Blend, which, for some reason, I kept misspelling as Morning Blind. Much more appropriate in our case, both because of my lack of sight and the fact that the show started early. I hadn’t had enough coffee yet and was still groping around a bit.

From all accounts, though, Hanni and I looked fine. My publisher at Blue Marlin Publications saw the interview and reported back to me in an email message:

It was extremely well done, both visually and interview-wise. At least three times during the interview, they flashed moving images of the cover and the internal pages we had sent them. The interviewers were extremely well dressed and well spoken also. And you are absolutely fantastic about answering questions on the spot without getting flustered.

I guess all the school visits Hanni and I have been doing lately have trained us well – Hanni was her calm loveable self on the set, and the questions I get from kids have taught me to be quick on my feet. If you missed our TV appearance in Milwaukee, the Morning Blend interview is available online.

The reason we were in Milwaukee and asked to do the Morning Blend TV interview in the first place was because Hanni and I had spent the day at Horace mann Elementary School in West Allis (a nearby suburb of Milwaukee) the day before. Our visit was billed as a reading incentive program, and we were able to return to the school in the evening to spend time with the kids and their parents, too. Families wrote books together after my evening presentation, and it was loads of fun to not only sign copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound for the kids, but also sign my name into the books they’d written themselves.

One of the kids who knew we were going to be on TV the next morning asked my very favorite question of the day: “What does it feel like to be a world famous author?” I could have explained that the TV Appearances were only local ones, Hanni and I don’t really get stopped on the street for autographs, we wouldn’t be boarding a private jet to fly back to Chicago after the interview. Instead, I summoned up the best Tony the Tiger imitation I could come up with and told him the truth: “It feels GRRRRRRRRReat!”