, Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

The New York Institute for Special Education's mission is to provide quality educational

programs & support to the students

& families in a safe, caring environment,

to awaken & inspire student curiosity,

lifelong learning, & fulfillment .

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Greetings!

Happy Thanksgiving!

As our students boarded the buses to go home for the long weekend, I'm in awe at how much they've accomplished since the beginning of the year.

Every day is full of new learning experiences, and the excitement that these experiences generate reminds me of the many reasons all of us here at NYISE have to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

If I had to choose a few of our students most favorite experiences thus far, I think the ones below would rank highly:

A visit yesterday from a few of our favorite furry and feathered friends;
Our White Cane Day parade featured on Bronx News 12;
An on-campus scavenger hunt engaging all the senses;
Our Pep Rally kicking off our athletics season;
Rock climbing in New Rochelle, and
Pony rides in Floral Park.

As a member of our growing community, all of this and more is made possible through your support, and I remain grateful for your belief in our efforts throughout the year to enrich the lives of our students.

As we get ready for the weeks ahead, I also wanted to let you know that this year marks our five-year anniversary of participating in Giving Tuesday , a day of giving back following Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

To learn more about how we will be participating in Giving Tuesday this year, click here. Hint: STEM.

As the cooler temperatures arrive and bring the winter weather, drive safe, keep warm, and know that we wish you and yours all the very best for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

Thank you for reading!

Till next time,

Executive Director

NYISE

PS: For pictures from our Residential Program's Thanksgiving Dinner, click here.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

SCHERMERHORN: COLLEGE FAIR

What will the future hold?

Our high school students were busy pondering this question at our annual College Fair that focuses on helping students learn, develop, and fine-tune the skills they need to negotiate, advocate, and prepare for the transitional years that pave the way and result in admission to college followed by a college degree.

A packed event, topics covered included:

Degree programs offered at the City University of New York, Hostos Community College, Dominican College, and Marymount Manhattan College;
Services and scholarships offered by the New York State Commission for the Blind;
The transition from NYISE to college? with Alum Jessica Karim;
Scholarships offered by the Lighthouse Guild;
Cultural internships offered by City Access New York;
Services provided by Bookshare,
The College NOW Program,
Assistive Technology, and
SAT prep.

Guiding students through the process of researching, applying, and choosing a college or university can be daunting, and our college fair provides an excellent starting point that we sincerely hope launches each one of our soon to be graduates on the road to success.

Thank you to everyone that made the College Fair such a success!

To learn more about our Schermerhorn program, click here.

VAN CLEVE: STEM ACTIVITIES

A favorite activity amongst our students is investigating, learning, and exploring Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) whenever possible during their classes.

In recent months, these activities have included studying robotics through hands-on activities like the one pictured below. What may look like play is simultaneously a lesson fostering real-world application of STEM principals to solve problems. For more STEM photos, click here.

In doing so, our students work together cooperatively towards a common STEM goal, a skill that is vitally important in and out of the classroom and the focus of this year's Giving Tuesday celebration at NYISE. To learn more, click here.

To learn more about our Van Cleve program click here.

READINESS: FALL FESTIVITIES

Each year our youngest students celebrate the change of seasons with our annual Fall Festival in October followed by a variety of art projects to celebrate the season and decorate their homes just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

A chance to experience the thrill of picking a pumpkin and taking a tractor ride around our campus, at the core of the Fall Festival is a chance to teach these youngsters about the change of seasons and how their surroundings reflect this change. It is also a chance to get these youngsters outside and, as seen in the picture below, have a few laughs with their friends.

To learn more about the Readiness Program, click here.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

ATHLETICS: TOURNAMENTS AND MORE

Congrats to our Girls and Boys Swim Team, that placed first and second respectively at an EAAB Swim Tournament hosted by the Overbrook School for the Blind earlier this month, and a big thank you to everyone who came together to celebrate National Blind Sports Day .

Featuring guest speaker Alison Lynch, a visually-impaired triathlete, and representatives from Run4FunUSA , this inspirational day was filled with tandem bike rides, beep kick ball, and boot camp training. To read more, click here for a Bronx Journal article.

To learn more about our Athletics program, click here .

THROWBACK THURSDAYS

NYISE's Museum and Archive preserves, catalogs, and disseminates documents and artifacts dating back to the dawn of the education of the blind in the United States. From this archive we find photos for #ThrowbackThursdays, including the one below from 1951. Know someone in this picture? Let us know at [email protected]

To learn more about our archives, click here .

UPCOMING EVENTS

Giving Tuesday (November 27)

Holiday Concert (December 13)

Readiness Holiday Sing-a-long (December 19)

For a complete schedule of events, click here .

THANK YOU!

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, we remain grateful to our supporters and sponsors that helped make Camp Wanaqua 2018 one of the best summers yet for our campers:

Reader's Digest Partners for Sight Foundation

Mrs. Cheever Porter Foundation, Inc.

Rossiter Financial Group, Inc.

JS Concrete & Masonry, LLC

Hinman Straub P.C. Charitable Fund of The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region

Gundermann & Gundermann, Inc./Cook Maran Associates

NYISE Board of Directors

Stay tuned for more information on Camp Wanaqua 2019 and click here to be notified when our camp application is made available in January 2019.

PHILANTHROPY

NYISE's programs are made possible in part through the generosity of a diverse community of friends and supporters who value quality educational opportunities for children who are blind or visually impaired, emotionally or learning disabled, and preschoolers who are developmentally delayed. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization, all contributions to NYISE are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.

DONATE

When you shop on Amazon this holiday season, make sure to select the New York Institute for Special Education as your designated charity by visiting: http://smile.amazon.com/ch/13-1740010 .

For every eligible purchase you make, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to NYISE. To learn more, click here .