Feel the Love with NBP’s Valentine’s Card

 

Every year, we at NBP all look forward to putting together the new Valentine’s Day card. Starting in October, we pass witty puns around the Publications department until we find one that hits our collective funny bone, and then we spring into action to turn our concept into a finished card that is available in time for the holiday.

This year’s card features a character many of us have come to love: an exuberant crayon who exclaims, “For crayon out loud, happy Valentine’s Day!” Why do we love this excitable crayon character so much? Well, who can forget meeting all of the hilarious and opinionated crayons in the popular books The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home?

crayon

One of the reasons we enjoy making the yearly Valentine’s Day card is that we each fondly remember giving and receiving these cards at school, and providing these cards is a perfect expression of our primary mission of parity. We believe that blind children should be able to experience and share in Valentine’s fun just as we did and just as their classmates do.

Hear what children’s book author Shea Gibson has to say about our Valentine’s Day cards:

“I’ve purchased Valentine’s Day cards from NBP for several years. I think it’s important to support organizations that exist for, and make efforts to, assist individuals whom may be visually impaired, like my 12-year old daughter Marie.

These cards are family-appropriate, creative, and are not only in print but pre-brailled for visually impaired individuals — allowing them to join in and enjoy the same nuances as a non-impaired person. Having the braille pre-marked on the cards is also a great help for teachers and other organizers whom are facilitating a card exchange for their school-aged children, both sighted and visually impaired.

NBP is a wonderful company and a great investment in my daughter’s future for the vast resources they can provide including something simple like a Valentine’s Day card.”

Order your Valentine’s Day cards online or by calling NBP today!

 

Six Dots: NBP’s plans for the New Year

Each year at NBP, we look forward to celebrating two very important days: New Year’s Day, which is all about setting goals for the upcoming year; and Louis Braille’s birthday (January 4th), which inspires us to be as bold and ambitious in our goals as he was in his life.

Louis Braille’s intellectual curiosity and determination drove him to create the braille code, which has brought literacy and independence to countless blind children and adults. Share his amazing life story with Jen Bryant’s new picture book, Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille, now available in print/braille.

sixdots

Inspired by his example, we at NBP will never stop advocating relentlessly for braille and braille literacy.

We will continue to grow our innovative Great Expectations program, which brings picture books to life for blind children through song, tactile play, engaged listening, and body movement. We will continue to serve families and teachers of the blind and visually impaired with our ReadBooks! program, which provides free bags of beginning braille materials to early braille learners to engage them early towards a path of braille literacy. We will continue to offer the fun Children’s Braille Book Club, which puts popular children’s books into the hands of children on a monthly basis. And, most importantly, we will continue to develop new, creative, and original children’s programs to meet the needs of all our young readers.

In addition to growing our children’s programs, here is what we have in the works for the new year:

  • We pledge to advocate for every blind and visually impaired child, veteran, and adult to have the tools and opportunities to learn braille.  We will continue to provide braille materials in every format that is needed to support braille literacy, including developing e-braille solutions at the lowest price possible.
  • We will strive to continue to expand our outreach and education with braille courses, offering training in Unified English Braille in the spring and specialty workshops on tactile graphics, formats, and technical materials in the months that follow.
  • Just as you’ve always been able to rely on NBP’s Publications department for excellent books on Apple/iOS products, our goal for the new year is to provide equally exciting books on Android-based apps and devices. In 2016 we published Getting Started with Android and plan to add even more books to serve the wide-ranging technology interests of our community.
  • In 2017, we also want to focus on getting more face-to-face time with our customers, by attending more exhibits and conventions around the country. We get so many ideas and so much good, constructive feedback when our customers have the opportunity to browse our books and products in person!
  • Attending more conferences nationwide will also give us the opportunity to network with additional businesses, educating them on the importance of providing braille materials.
  • Finally, we will strive to connect more with our customers and supporters by hosting more Because Braille Matters luncheons across the country, bringing the A Million Laughs for Literacy Gala to more people, developing activities and events that showcase our mission, and increasing the number of Literacy Champions who donate to us each month.

Updated 1/24/17