Massachusetts
‘Sound of freedom’ raised at annual White Cane Awareness Day for visually impaired in Hub
BOSTON — While October is designated as White Cane Awareness Month, the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and Perkins School for the Blind chose Friday to bring its membership, local and national advocates and service providers together at the State House to mark the month and a special awareness day.
“This event is designed more as an educational day to alert people to the importance of white cane awareness and to increase the safety of the vision-impaired and blind residents,” said Michela Meaney, one of five orientation and mobility specialists working in Massachusetts. “Cane users spend hours, days, trying to rehabilitate into our world. This day provides a way to make it safer for them.”
More than 300 people gathered in the Great Hall at the State House to help extend awareness of the law that requires motorists come to a full stop when they see a person wielding a white cane or walking with a service dog, attempting to cross an intersection.
“Pump the brakes,” said Joseph Buizon, director of programs and services with the commission. Individuals who are visually impaired, Buizon said, walking with a cane or a dog, are protected under Massachusetts law. Those who fail to follow the law are subject to a ticket and fine.
He asked all those in attendance who walk with a white cane to open the tools and hold them high.
“When I hear the click, click, click of the white canes, to me that’s the sound of freedom,” Buizon said.
White canes, as their users will tell you, need hours of practice to master. They impart information to the user and communicate spatial relationships, textures, changes in paving material and irregularities in walkways and sidewalks.
“I know a white cane is so much more than a mobility tool,” said Kate Walsh, state secretary of health and human services. She called it a tool of independence and self-determination for the visually impaired and the blind that allows them to live freely and safely and participate fully in their communities.
Walsh was given a special gift to commemorate the day: a Barbie doll packaged in a box labeled in Braille. The doll was sporting a white cane and high heels; those heels were made to order, said John Oliveira, the leader of the commission, who was appointed to the job last year.
That Barbie doll is wearing high heels to counter the common misconception that blind women cannot wear high heels, Oliveira said. The commission acted as consultants with Mattel to ensure accuracy in depicting a vision-impaired Barbie.
Walsh, visibly moved by the gift, looked around the packed Great Hall and found a special child to be the recipient of the doll. Amyah Walker, 7 of East Taunton, was attending the day with her mother, Victoria, and her family. Her mother said the girl had been “wanting the doll forever.” The family held up her white cane when Buizon called for the audience to do so.
Sharing personal stories was a big part of the day. One of the featured speakers, Kate Higgins, associate director of Harvard University Disability Resources and a board member at the Perkins School for the Blind, became blind as a teenager.
“I was just looking to get my driver’s license,” Higgins said, adding that she received a white cane instead. She outlined the “long, annoying” task of learning how to use the cane, telling of countless times the tip became lodged in a crack or crevice, and times when she jabbed herself in the stomach.
“It took a long time for the white cane to become an extension of my arm,” Higgins said. She also discussed the first time she ventured beyond her cul de sac on her own with just her white cane. She made it across two streets, but it started the process of her gaining confidence “with every step,” and to learn to trust and depend on the information conveyed by the white cane.
“It wasn’t as fast as a car, but it allowed me to explore the whole world,” Higgins said. She took a minute to detour from her life’s narrative to talk about that first journey out of her comfort zone. Two neighborhood classmates took it upon themselves to walk behind her. “They coached me on how to swing my cane and yelled periodically, ‘Watch out!’”
Those shouts prompted her to question how she would “watch out now that I can’t see.” In an aside, she counseled the seeing people in the audience to be specific in their advice to “watch out!” She mentioned several instances where being specific would help a blind person understand a peril: the car that’s running the red light where you were about to cross or the person sleeping on the bench where you were about to sit.
Higgins, who uses both a white cane and has a service dog, Dodger, depending on the circumstances of her schedule, said White Cane Awareness Day matters to the vision-impaired community. The day highlights the importance of the tool that ensures all Massachusetts residents have the same access to mobility as the seeing community.
“This is an opportunity to acknowledge, champion and support the vision-impaired community,” Higgins said. “Mobility is a right to be shared by all.”
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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