Visually challenged contestants will show their talents - and possibly clear up some misconceptions about the abilities of being blind - when they compete in the Blind Beginnings Has Talent fundraiser this weekend.
About 16 entertainers will take to the stage at the Sapperton Pensioner Hall on Saturday night to compete for prizes in the talent show.
"I have been wanting to do a talent show fundraiser," said Shawn Marsolais, manager of programs and services for Blind Beginnings.
"There is a lot of talent within the blind community."
Marsolais worked with youth leaders involved in Blind Beginnings to plan the show that takes place on Saturday, June 22 at 7 p.m. at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall at 318 Keary St.
The show features entertainment by blind artists from around the Lower Mainland aged 11 to early 60s.
"It's a bit of an ambitious task," said Marsolais, noting the group only started planning the show about six weeks ago. "I hope people will come out. I think it will be a really awesome event."
One contestant will perform a hula dance, while the remainder will sing and play a variety of instruments including the guitar, piano and flute.
"It should be a very musical event," said Marsolais.
The judge panel is made up of two blind adjudicators and one sighted person, in order to evaluate the dancing component of the entertainment.
"I think a lot of sighted people aren't thinking about talent when they think about blindness," Marsolais said. "I really want to showcase that talent."
Funds raised at the Blind Beginnings Has Talent event will support the non-profit organization's youth leadership program, which allows young people from various parts of B.C. to meet and develop their leadership and life skills. It also gives them a chance to meet and develop For a friendships with other scan youth who are visually impaired or blind.
Marsolais, a New Westminster native, founded Blind Beginnings five years ago. The New Westminster-based organization seeks to empower blind and visually impaired children and youth and to support their families through a variety of workshops and programs, including parent-to-parent support programs, youth leadership initiatives, creating confidence workshops and a community discovery program that allows children to experience the world around them.
Marsolais was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease ideo, ith that leads to the loss of vision. Marsolais, who has two per cent vision due to retinal pigmen-tosa, inspires young people to adopt a "no limits" philosophy.
Marsolais not only promotes that philosophy, but she lives it; she competed in swimming in the Canada Summer Games in 1993, was an alternate to the national Paralympics swim team for Atlanta in 1996, competed in tandem cycling in Athens in 2004, and was a member of Canada's national goalball team. In November 2012, she earned her master's degree from UBC.
Through Blind Beginnings, Marsolais mentors 17 blind youth leaders, including seven who are involved in planning the event and others who are competing and creating a promotional video for Blind Beginnings Has Talent.
"We can accommodate up to 300 people - at this point there are lots of tickets," she said. "Everybody is welcome."
Marsolais believes that she and her family would have had an easier time adjusting to her blindness if a program like Blind Beginnings existed when she was a child.
"I was born with a degenerative condition," she said in a previous Record article. "I could see when I was a kid, but I was legally blind."
Marsolais didn't know she was going to go blind until she was about 12 years of age. Her parents learned of her diagnosis several years earlier.
"My parents were really young, quite shocked and didn't know how to tell their little girl she was going blind - so they didn't," she said. "Adjusting to my blindness was really hard."
Marsolais's goal is to inspire the children and youth she works with to believe they can be anything they choose and they don't have be limited because they are blind.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors and students, and free for children five years and under. To reserve or purchase tickets, call 604-434-7243.
