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Operation Truffle with a difference hit Wanganui last Friday 6 May, 2011. I was asked to speak at the Disability May Day run by the Disability Information Service in Wanganui.
So along with two classes from Wanganui Intermediate 9 other schools got to see me do my Cooking Without Looking demonstration.
Some of the feedback from the day has been super awesome – let’s hear some of it now –
Hello Julie,
It’s Caitlin from ChurtonSchool! How are you? I hope you are good!
I hope you are getting around ok. Oh yes I nearly forgot the answer to the secret Braille! It was ”Why not” I’m sorry you got blind. I hope everything is going well! I hope to run into you soon.
Remember always keep your head held high and try and live your life as long as you can because there may be new challenges ahead of you.
Don’t turn down things even though they may sound scary but say
Why Not! =)
So please email mYours Sincerely,
Caitlin Whiteman
“It was amazing how you can read emails without seeing, it even inspired me to do a bit of “blind cooking” with brownies. The good thing was i eventually made them BUT i made alot of mess by accidently missing the bowl and sifted the flour on the floor! Mum wasn’t too impressed with that!! I hope that you enjoyed the gifts that my peers made and have a fantastic weekend”
love Hetal Patel
Janes CookSchool – Wanganui
And this text from Bee at St Annes School –
The answer to your braille is why not! I think you are so inspiring and I will look up to you forever. hugs galore. Bee!
Go Caitlin, Hetal and Bee!
Special thanks to the students at James Cook School who made me a special piece of art saying the word “hope” in braille. It’s at the picture framers getting foam backed and when it’s back I’ll take a photo and add it to this blog.
Thursday 5 May – this time in the afternoon I drove to Wanganui from Levin. Wanganui is about an hour from Levin so Marian from the Disability Information Service came and drove me up to Wanganui. This meant I got time to visit Rutherford Junior High in the afternoon.
It was awesome – check out the pics! 299 kids that had heard Christian Cullen in the morning – then they sat so patiently through that blind woman too!
Here’s what Lisa emailed me after the event.
To Julie
”Hi Julie it’s Lisa here from Rutherford Junior High Intermediate School”
The answer to the question is why not. It must have been hard learning how to read braille with your fingers.You are a brilliant cook.
From Lisa
Please write back Thank You
Go Lisa!
Thanks too to Devon and Grace (who are shown in the pic) who helped me set up!
Woo hoo!
Last Thursday I visited LevinIntermediateSchool as part of Operation Truffle.
Named after my famous truffle recipe, “Operation Truffle” is my project to visit the 119 Intermediates around NZ.
On Thursday 5 May it was Levin Intermediate’s turn to host Operation Truffle.
I presented my book, How to Make a Silver Lining to the school as I actively encouraged questions from the students. Some students were lucky enough to receive a chocolate truffle for their question but not before telling me “what the best thing about being blind was.”
Perhaps the feedback I had from Jimmy Jamieson will show what the students thought —
“Thank-you very much for coming to our School and making
some Bloddy Truffles. They were delicious ! I think its amazing how you can still do most if not everything that an average person can do. You really inspire
me to take every oppurtunity in life and to never give up. I also really enjoyed your stories about Louis Braille and how he Invented Braille. Thank-you
so much. I hope to hear from you soon”
Go Jimmy!
Go Levin Intermediate.
The visit to Levin Intermediate was made possible by product sponsorship from Pams and RJ’s Licorice. In Levin’s case, RJ”s also sponsored the visit to the school so a big thanks to Levin’s very own licorice team.
This blogs photo is of the principal Mr Jeffries, student Georgia Crandall and me! Oh yeah – and the giant truffle!
Thanks to Dunedin Couriers the 1000 of those truffles headed up to the kids of Canterbury on Wednesday 23 March. They were “Pinked” up and split amongst Linwood, Shirley and Kirkwood Intermediates. It turned out that the two Intermediates I had visited last November, Linwood and Shirley were the two worst affected Intermediate Schools in Christchurch. Rather than feeling I was jinxed, I preferred to think that they are the kids who needed to have the WHY NOT message under their belts!
Each truffle was accompanied by individual messages of support from students at Oamaru, Tahuna and Avalon Intermediates. Here’s what some of them read:
“Our school has been helping the fundraising for Canterbury. Hopefully it will help put a smile on people’s faces once again.
The earthquake in September, and now this!? It must be hard living down there, seeing peoples house’s destroyed, people dead… it must be devastating. I feel for you. I really do. I hope the aftershocks stop soon! My heart is with you all.”
“Hope you are ok. Something I always say is hope comes during times of adversity. Good Luck”
“We are all thinking of you at this time. You are amazing people to be standing strong through this. All the best. Stay safe”
“Remember – Kia kaha – Stand strong people of Christchurch because you’re a kiwi not a loser! Peace out!”
“Be brave. We will always think of you. Be optimistic and positive”
“Don’t cry because it’s happened. Smile because it’s over!”
“Stand strong. Be brave. Never lose hope”
“The darkest part of night is the one just before dawn. Dawn is coming. A little something to brighten your day”
“Think positive! Be brave! Be strong! We are always thinking about you. You have our support”
Go Tahuna Intermediate!
Go Avalon Intermediate!
Go Oamaru Intermediate!
Here’s the note we received from the principal of Shirley Intermediate: Mr Geoff Siave
(photographed with me last November when I went to visit Shirley Intermediate)
Hi Julie
Thank you so much for the truffles which you coordinated with the children from Avalon Intermediate and TahunaIntermediateSchool. They were delicious.
We had a “Red and Black” mufti day on Friday 25 March and the truffles arrived just in time. The children loved them, and so did the adults.
It coincided with all the Canterbury Intermediate school principals having a tour through our school to look at earthquake damage. The principals also
Loved the truffles and Lee (principal of Linwood) and I sang your praises.
Once again, Julie, you have modelled resilience, dreamed a dream, and said “why not?” Well done to you! You really are inspirational. Thanks for walking
The talk.
Some of our children have written lovely little thank you notes to the children from Avalon and TahunaSchools. We will post these away tomorrow (Thursday
31 March).
We recognise that doing something good for others has its own rewards, so let’s hope the children from Avalon and Tahuna “feel the love”.
Best wishes to you, Julie.
Geoff Siave
Principal
Shirley IntermediateSchool
Thanks to all those who supported this special project – Pams, RJ’s Licorice, Otago Packaging, Dunedin Couriers, Westpac, Otago Access Radio, Margaret Jackson and the many other volunteers.
Let’s give a great big cheer for “baking” a difference!
Toroa Radio 1575AM, Otago’s Community Access station, stepped up to FM on Thursday March 10, re-branding itself in the process as Otago Access Radio, OAR 105.4FM.
I host the ‘Cooking Without Looking’ show on the station, every Wednesday at 1pm.
To mark the occasion, the station held a fun-filled event on Saturday, March 12 between 11am and 2pm at the carpark of Dunedin Community House, and I was there making those bl**dy truffles again amid the market stalls, music and mirth.
Why 1000 truffles for the kids affected by February 22 earthquake?
When I went blind, people brought food and baking to our house for my family.
I remember one chocolate cake in particular that was dropped at our front door. It tasted so yummy amidst all the trauma of going blind, I thought it would be nice to send a chocolate treat to the kids of Christchurch who were going through their own trauma.
It was my way of baking a difference!
The 1000 truffles made for the kids of Canterbury were going to Linwood and Shirley Intermediates, the two Intermediate Schools I had already visited in Christchurch in 2010 as part of operation Truffle.
Sponsors Pams, RJ’s and Otago Packaging generously stepped forward to donate ingredients for this great big effort.
Look at the photo – we’re really getting into it!
Check out the next one….
To see if we made it…….
By joves we did it! 1000 truffles for the kids of Canterbury.
It was a real lesson in optimism so it took a happy team of volunteers to get together in the car park of Community House in Dunedin on Saturday 12 March to make 1000 truffles for the kids affected by Christchurch’s 22 February earthquake.
With product donated by Pams, RJ’s and Otago Packaging we set out at 10 am to make our massive total. With me at the mixture making part of the chain, our volunteers then rolled and dipped their truffles onto baking paper which the weather allowed to set beautifully.
The totoal was helped by donations of already made truffles being dropped off throughout the day. At one point, when we were getting tired I commented “all we need now is an angel to come around the corner with some more truffles” at which point one of our volunteers turned around and said “here’s a lady carrying a tin and I think she’s coming our way.” And she was! And then another woman arrived giving us enough truffles to get over the line.
Special thanks to Tahuna, Oamaru and Avalon Intermediate kids who wrote notes of support to put in with the truffles.
Thanks to the awesome team from Westpac, Margaret Jackson, Sue Clarke, St Johns Auxiliary Women’s group and the team at Otago Access Radio for all their hard work.
Perhaps the day can be summed up by one woman from St Johns Anglican Church who dropped off her truffle contribution saying “I wondered why you called them ‘those bl**dy truffles Julie – now I know why!”
More details on truffle distribution to follow.
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement”
Helen Keller – Deafblind pioneer
We returned to Tahuna Intermediate on March 15 and re-inacted the Cooking without Looking demonstration and filmed the kids cheering and yahooing! What fun!
You’ll be able to check out that episode of Attitude TV, including the image shown here, in the middle of the year –in the meantime tune into Channel 1 at 8.30 am on Sundays. It’s a fabulous programme which profiles people with disability in a positive light! How many more P’s could you want!
Keep posted to this blog to find out when that episode will be appearing.
On Friday 11 March, 2011, I went to Tahuna Intermediate as part of my nationwide project aimed at inspiring kiwi kids.
Here’s what some of them said –
“I think you’re amazing for doing all this stuff like Cooking Without Looking”
Jayden
“I would like to know what the last thing you saw before you went blind”
Hannah –
Well Hannah – wait for it – drum roll –
The last thing I remember seeing before I went blind was my brother in law putting up green wallpaper in their lounge.
Go Tahuna!
But wait – I got to go back to Tahuna!
Read on……
It’s 202 years ago today that Louis Braille, the inventor of braille, was born in a small village in France, the youngest and fourth child in the Braile family.
On January 4, 2009, the braille world commemorated the 200th anniversary of Louis Braille’s birth by hosting an international conference in Paris.
My partner Ron and I left New Zealand on New Year’s Eve, 2008, flying to Paris to attend this conference and associated celebrations that commemorated this great day.
On his actual birthday, January 4, 2009, we attended celebrations including a visit to the Pantheon where Louis Braille’s ashes were contained in the crypt. We attended a night time concert at Nottradame to hear a recital by five blind organists as Louis Braille himself was a keen organist.
The conference itself commenced on January 5, 2009, at UNESCO’s conference facilities where over 400 delegates from 46 countries from all over the world attended, including 10 New Zealanders. The three days was full of the contribution Louis Braille had made to the blind world through his system of reading and writing. Details of his life and code were shared and discussions held around braille and it’s future.
The conference was punctuated on Wednesday January 7 by a dinner held in the City Hall in Paris and attended by the Paris Mayor. The morning after involved a visit to Louis Braille’s birthplace in a small village 40 km east of Paris in which we travelled by bus to get there.
This was a real highlight for me as we got to go into the Braille’s family kitchen and touched the board Louis’s father had made for him to learn the shape of print letters. We even got to go into the workshop where Louis had his accident at the age of three while playing with his father’s sharp saddle making tools.
On the wall above the front door of the Brailles’ house, a plaque says this is where Louis Braille was born and that he invented the
system of reading and writing using raised dots that enabled blind people all around the world to read and write. It also says, “He opened the doors of knowledge to all those who cannot see.”
Upon leaving the Braille’s house I knelt down in the front garden and placed a NZ flag containing the silver fern, just to let the braille world know kiwis had visited this special place.
Louis Braille died in 1852, at the age of 43, from tuberculosis. No French papers noted his passing and his code was not adopted until 2 years later in 1854.
Louis Braille was originally buried in a simple grave in the
small cemetery in his hometown. In 1952, on the one-hundredth anniversary of his death, public feeling grew that his remains should be moved to the Pantheon
in Paris, where France’s national heroes are buried. The mayor of Coupvray protested that Louis Braille was a true child of the area and that some of him
should remain in his home village. His hands were separated from his arms and re-buried in Coupvray.
The rest of his body was interred in the Pantheon following a huge public ceremony attended by dignitaries from all over the world, including Helen
Keller, who gave a speech in what the New York Times reported as “faultlessly grammatical” French. She declared, to a rousing ovation from the hundreds
of other Braille readers in attendance, that “we, the blind, are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg.”
To think – Louis Braille was born and died in obscurity yet his contribution to the world was immense. Just imagine his contribution if he hadn’t gone blind through that accident in his father’s workshop. Talk about silver linings!
Happy 202 birthday – Louis Braille!
Operation Truffle 