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Braille Literacy Coin Funding
By Alicia Waters | June 10, 2009
January 4, 2009 was the bicentennial of the birth of Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille method of reading and writing on paper. According to Gary Ray, President of the NFB of North Carolina, blind people who read Braille tend to be more successful and employable. Only 10% of the US blind population read and write Braille. In 2006, US Congress passed P.L. 109-247, The Louis Braille Bicenntennial- Braille Literacy Commemorative Coin Act. One of the unique features of the law is that $10 from the sale of each Braille coin will be set aside to be used to improve Braille literacy within the U.S. Every dollar raised for Braille literacy by coin sales must be matched in order to be used for literacy pruposes. Although sales of the coin will end on December 31, 2009, efforts to raise matching funds will continue well into the future. For more information, visit the braille.org website.
Information in this blog posting was found in an article by Gary Ray in Tar Heel Talk…Spring 2009, a State Library of North Carolina Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped newsletter. The words in this posting, braille.org, are linked to another webpage.
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