By Town Crier Report
What would it take to get you to spend a half hour or more shut snugly in a small, soundproof room?
For many in the community, all it takes is the knowledge that the local unit of the non-profit Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) needs readers for its Record-A-Thon scheduled Monday through April 30.
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, 14th Congressional District, and State Senator Joe Simitian, 11th Senate District, will add their political expertise. World-renowned concert pianist Jodi Gandolfi and Vivian Walsh, author of the popular children’s series about “Olive, the Other Reindeer,” will contribute their voices to the annual intensive read-in, scheduled nationwide to promote awareness of the program as well as increase production of digitally recorded books.
Last year, retired Judge and Palo Alto Councilwoman La Doris H. Cordell dropped into the Palo Alto studio to record during the annual April celebrity push. What was once a half-hour community service billet has become a cause for Cordell.
She is an active supporter and a permanent weekly volunteer at the Palo Alto recording studio.
RFB&D assists more than 137,000 students who have print-related disabilities by recording textbooks in support of their curricula. The organization’s library of more than 104,000 recordings nationwide includes topics ranging from Mark Twain to the sciences, medicine and law.
Cordell recruited associates and friends to participate this year. Palo Alto Mayor Jim Burch and Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Trustees President Mandy Lowell responded to her call. Professor Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School; Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University professor and biographer; and Sharon Chatman, judge of the California Superior Court of Santa Clara County, will help fill the ranks of distinguished readers in the Record-A-Thon.
For more information on the Record-A-Thon, how to become a regular reader or how to contribute to the program, call 493-3717, ext. 16, or log on to www.rfbd.org/Units/Northern_California_Unit.htm.
