https://youtu.be/NCykcPA49QY
Affiliate Chapter Corner
Learning and Growing in the Pandemic Era COLUMN Dr. Carolyn Ball, CI and CT, NIC RID Affiliate Chapter Liaison Carolyn Ball and Minnesota RID President Tara Grammenos discuss current events in the state of Minnesota
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arolyn Ball: What has been the response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Has your state been receptive to providing Deaf Interpreters at the Emergency Meetings? Tarra Grammenos: We’ve been very lucky to have our incredibly talented Programs Director, Nic Zapko, be one of the main Deaf Interpreters to interpret for our press conferences. She’s built up quite a following on social media!
supremacy within our own organization. Those conversations sparked the idea to establish new scholarships specifically for Interpreters of Color. We decided to sponsor a fundraiser to fund these scholarships and hosted a webinar panel discussion with eighteen Interpreters of Color from Minnesota. We were overwhelmed with the amount of support that came in. MSRID had 300 participants during the webinar and raised $5,000 for the scholarships! I would love to see other chapters do the same, so if you have any questions on how we did it, please reach out!
CB: What else is happening in Minnesota that has impacted the Chapter?
CB: You have been a strong and very involved leader as the AC President. What drives you to serve? Why do you want to serve? What can you tell others about the benefits of serving?
TG: Over the summer our community had a very raw and honest conversation about racism in the Interpreting and Deaf communities in Minnesota. The conversation was hard, but very much needed. The dialogue led our board to take a serious look at racism and white
TG: This is my third year as president and I can tell you that my presidency today looks very different than when I started on January 1st, 2018. I love this job. I love this organization. I started volunteering with MRID almost 15 years ago, and always had my eye on being
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VIEWS Issue 37 • Volume 4
