The Fox Family Foundation Podcast: Recent Episodes
Akira Nakano
Conversations with the leaders of the Fox Family Foundation grantees and the innovators within the field of blindness and visual impairment.
Joan Chu Reese is the Executive Director of Vision to Learn (VTL), an organization which provides free eye exams and eye glasses to children in underserved communities.
Joan joined Vision To Learn in 2018 after an extensive career in consulting as Partner and West Coast Practice Leader, Monitor Company Group LLP (now part of Deloitte), where she focused on biotechnology clients and the firm’s leadership development practice. Joan is President of the Harvard Club of Southern California, and VP Finance for Phi Beta Kappa Alumni in Southern California, and a former member of the Financial Oversight Committee, Santa Monica-Malibu Municipal School District. She holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an A.B., Economics from Harvard-Radcliffe University. Joan is a strong believer in helping the next generation reach their potential through education and her role as Executive Director at Vision To Learn allows her to directly help kids by giving them the glasses they need to succeed in school and in life.
Links
Big Picture Learning
Classic Optical Laboratories
Warby Parker
Blue Meridian
John Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute Study
Southern California Eye Institute Ophthalmic Technician Education Program (OTEP)
Fox Family Foundation
The Fox Family Foundation seeks to break the link between poverty and vision loss. Our innovative grantees achieve the greatest solutions in eye-heath solutions through cross collaboration.
For this month's podcast, we welcome Allison Burdett, Associate Vice President, Visual Impairment & Developmental Disabilities Services of Wayfinder Family Services.
Allison has worked in the field of disability services since 2008 and currently liaisons with numerous government agencies and community partners including school districts, the California Department of Rehabilitation, California Regional Centers, and the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services. Ms. Burdett oversees programs that span Southern and Northern California including rehabilitation and training programs for transition-age youth and adults with visual impairments, a non-public K-12 Special Education School, Group Homes department, Early Intervention Programs, and Recreation Services. Ms. Burdett graduated from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Special Education from San Francisco State University and is certified through ACVREP as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist
Contact Wayfinder
Phone: (323) 295-4555
Toll Free: (800) 352-2290 Toll Free
The Fox Family Foundation seeks to break the link between poverty and vision loss. Our innovative grantees achieve the greatest solutions in eye-health solutions through cross collaboration.
For our inaugural podcast, we speak with Ollie Cantos, the Board Chair of RespectAbility. RespectAbility is a diverse, disability-led nonprofit that works to create systemic change in how society views and values people with disabilities, and that advances policies and practices that empower people with disabilities to have a better future. Their mission is to fight stigmas and advance opportunities so people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.
Ollie Cantos has been active in the civil rights arena since 1990. He is Special Assistant to the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, Attorney Mentor for the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights, Vice President of the Virginia Association of Parents of Blind Children, and Member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Past positions include Staff Attorney and Director of Outreach and Education at the Disability Rights Legal Center, General Counsel and Director of Programs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, Special Assistant and later Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush. Prior leadership posts include Vice Chair of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Legal Officer for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Vice President of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chairman of the Board for Scholarships for Eagles, President of the California Association of Blind Students and the National Association of Blind Students, and member of the boards of directors of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, the Blind Children’s Center, Community Lodgings, the California Association to Promote the Use of Braille, the National Federation of the Blind of California, Loyola Marymount University Alumni Association, and Loyola Law School Alumni Association.
Ollie is also the first of Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander (AANHPI) descent to lead a national 501(c)3 nonprofit organization focused on disabilities.
Hosted by Akira Nakano.
www.respectability.org/people-at-work-with-disabilities
The Fox Family Foundation seeks to break the link between poverty and vision loss. Our innovative grantees achieve the greatest solutions in eye-health solutions through cross collaboration.
For our inaugural podcast, we speak with Ollie Cantos, the Board Chair of RespectAbility. RespectAbility is a diverse, disability-led nonprofit that works to create systemic change in how society views and values people with disabilities, and that advances policies and practices that empower people with disabilities to have a better future. Their mission is to fight stigmas and advance opportunities so people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.
Ollie Cantos has been active in the civil rights arena since 1990. He is Special Assistant to the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, Attorney Mentor for the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights, Vice President of the Virginia Association of Parents of Blind Children, and Member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Past positions include Staff Attorney and Director of Outreach and Education at the Disability Rights Legal Center, General Counsel and Director of Programs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, Special Assistant and later Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush. Prior leadership posts include Vice Chair of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Legal Officer for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Vice President of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chairman of the Board for Scholarships for Eagles, President of the California Association of Blind Students and the National Association of Blind Students, and member of the boards of directors of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, the Blind Children’s Center, Community Lodgings, the California Association to Promote the Use of Braille, the National Federation of the Blind of California, Loyola Marymount University Alumni Association, and Loyola Law School Alumni Association.
Hosted by Akira Nakano.
www.respectability.org/people-at-work-with-disabilities