Happy White Cane Day

Why do we celebrate White Cane Day? Maybe celebrate isn’t the right word, it’s more bringing an invisible and often ignored community to the forefront.

Often when people experience vision loss they tuck away in their comfortable environment. It might be as limited as staying behind their front door.

Orientation and Mobility, and use of a white cane, is basically exposure therapy to the world outside the front door. It’s navigating using senses other than eyes to maneuver in spaces you used to be completely comfortable in. Orientation and Mobility isn’t meant to teach you every route you’ll ever take, instead it’s meant to expose you to a variety of situations so when you encounter similar ones in the future you can confidently problem solve.

It’s not, “how do I cross these specific intersections.” It’s “what information do I need to cross (or not cross) any intersection"?”

By the time you’ve completed training you have faced so many fears and placed yourself outside of your comfort zone, but usually it’s alone or one-on-one with an instructor.

White Cane Day is a day to congregate in public spaces with white canes. In Bradenton they meet at the courthouse and walk down main street, then to the riverwalk, ending at a restaurant.

People with vision loss are important to our society. They can effect how our streets are built and maintained, how our transit runs, and where funding is allocated for which services. The caviat is, they have to show up, and White Cane Day is a great way to amplify these voices.

Happy White Cane Day!