Full Transcript
Bryce Weller:
I’m their Disability Consultant. I have helped them make both Camden Yards more accessible as well as their spring training stadium.
Jeff Thompson:
Introducing Bryce Weiler.
Bryce Weller:
In these programs, we want to give everyone the opportunity to do something they’ve always dreamed about doing or to try something new.
Jeff Thompson:
Blindness consultant for the Baltimore Orioles.
Bryce Weller:
Helping Baltimore become the first ever team in sports to wear braille on their jerseys, to honor people who are blind and to show the importance of people who are blind in learning how to read braille.
Jeff Thompson:
Co-Founder of the Beautiful Lives Project, beautifullives.org
Bryce Weller:
And to create these moments, they’re using sports where they can have social change to impact various populations of people across the world and the country, and trying to expand it nationwide and even into Canada, across the ocean, wherever someone wants to do an event I’m willing to try to set that up for them.
Jeff Thompson:
Now please welcome Bryce Weiler. Welcome to blind abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. Today we’re talking to Bryce Weiler and he’s the Disability Consultant for the Baltimore Orioles. He’s the Advocacy Officer and Co-founder of the Beautiful Lives Project. That’s beautifullives.org. How are you doing Bryce?
Bryce Weller:
I’m great. Jeff. My nonprofit has been around since May of 2017. The Beautiful Lives Project.
Jeff Thompson:
Beautiful Lives Projects. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Bryce Weller:
We work to give individuals of all ages, disabilities, the opportunity to take part in programs with sports teams, cheerleading teams, dance teams, ballet, basically whatever program someone might want across the country. We have different staff members who set up events in certain areas of the country.
Bryce Weller:
I set up events all across the country. We have a staff member in the Hartford area who sets up events, in Dallas, Texas, Raleigh, North Carolina, Chicago, Illinois, California by Los Angeles, green Bay, Wisconsin, Long Island, New York and many more chapters to come all across the country.
Bryce Weller:
And we basically give people the opportunity to take part in programs they may not have been able to take part in previously.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh that’s great. And that’s open to all disabilities?
Bryce Weller:
Yes. All ages, all disabilities as well can take part in these programs. We want to give everyone the opportunity to do something they’ve always dreamed about doing or to try something new. One of our big staple events is iFLY Events. We’ve had some in California and a couple other places across the country.
Bryce Weller:
It’s an event where people can get into a wind tunnel and through a very large fan, larger than the ceiling fan you may have in your living room or kitchen, they’re able to be flown off the ground and it’s like they’re flying.
Jeff Thompson:
Harry Potter style?
Bryce Weller:
Yeah. We also like having events with college dance teams where people can practice a dance and then do that at halftime of a college sporting event, like a college basketball game. So they really enjoy being able to interact with the dancers and dance team coaching staff, and then be able to put what they learned into practice and be out on the court at halftime.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s great. I went to your website and once again, that’s beautifullives.org. There’s some videos on there. They’re actually interacting with professional athletes.
Bryce Weller:
Yes. I have done programs before with the Evansville Otters, with the Orioles in Baltimore and West in New Britain Bees, where groups of individuals were able to come out onto the field and play with players and coaches and join a great experience for both groups because they are able to interact with each other and create lifelong lasting bonds, which is the ultimate goal of these programs. Giving both groups new friends and new groups they might not have interacted with previously.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s great. You’re educating professional athletes, organizations and you’re giving the opportunity to individuals to meet the professional. That’s awesome.
Bryce Weller:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Tell me about your Disability Consulting with the Baltimore Orioles.
Bryce Weller:
With the Orioles as their Disability Consultant, I have helped them make both Camden Yards more accessible as well as their Spring Training Stadium, Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Florida. And in fact some of your viewers and listeners may have seen that I helped out with last year in September of 2018, was helping Baltimore become the first ever team in sports to wear braille on their jerseys to honor people who are blind and to show the importance of people who are blind in learning how to read braille. Their players and coaches had their names and numbers written in braille on their jerseys.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s really cool. That’s really something for them to do that.
Bryce Weller:
It was really interesting for them to do that because they are a really forward thinking organization who likes to go beyond the boundaries of sports and to create these moments. They’re using sports where they can have social change to impact various populations of people across the world and the country. You don’t see many sports organizations in this country trying to do that sort of thing.
Jeff Thompson:
Bryce, what gave you the spark to start all this awareness?
Bryce Weller:
Sitting on the university of Evansville men’s basketball bench in college, thanks to the invitation of the former Aces head, men’s basketball coach, Marty Simmons from 2010 through 2014, gave me the opportunity to do something I didn’t think I would be able to do. And that is be around a college basketball team and to be around sports.
Bryce Weller:
After finishing up my graduate school over at Western Illinois in Macomb, I wanted to be able to give back to other individuals who may not have had those opportunities or have been fortunate enough to take part in those programs like I was when I was at Evansville, to be able to sit on the basketball bench. I started reaching out to sports teams and all sorts of programs all across the country.
Jeff Thompson:
And what kind of tenacity do you have to have to, probably not every sports team reached back or got back to you. How was that for you to probably get turned down but finally connect up with Baltimore Orioles?
Bryce Weller:
Baltimore was the first one that I got to do these programs with me and that was really refreshing and great to be able to do the programs with them. I have heard from a large number of the sports team. So every time I have a new successful event over at Camden Yards or wit my nonprofit, I send it to other sports teams who I think that I’m really close getting to do events or programs with just to let them know what I’ve been up to.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. Keeping the awareness of what you’re doing and letting them know really helps.
Bryce Weller:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
What upcoming events do you have going on?
Bryce Weller:
I mean, we always have events all over the calendar on our nonprofit. I would suggest looking at our calendar to see what events we have coming up. I know you’re looking for a nice event to get your 2020 started right and you’re in the Richmond, Kentucky area, I have a dance program on January the fourth where any individual can come dance on the court with the Eastern Kentucky Dance Team at a doubleheader basketball game against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.
Bryce Weller:
It’s a men’s and women’s basketball games and I’ll be dancing at two basketball games that day. We’ve practiced to follow earlier that week. And we always have all sorts of events. So just check the calendar on beautifullives.org. Email me at bryce@beautifullives.org if you want to volunteer or to run a nonprofit chapter across the country, you can do that. We can train you how to do that.
Bryce Weller:
If you have a request of a certain event that we’ve never thought about, even booking or scheduling before, like you want to learn how to be a world-class chef and you want some cooking classes, we’ll try to get cooking classes scheduled for you and your neighborhood of the country.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s great. That’s opportunity that stretches all the way across the nation. Good job, Bryce. Now Bryce, let’s talk about Bryce yourself. When did you start using assistive technology?
Bryce Weller:
I was born four months premature, which caused me to be blind, being born in 1991. I learned how to read braille when I started kindergarten in 1996/1997. Probably started using a computer with a screen reading program, I don’t think it was JAWS because I’m old enough to have outlived the starting of JAWS. But there was something on that computer and whenever JAWS came around, I started using JAWS on my computer.
Bryce Weller:
Got my first iPhone in 2012 in June with the iPhone 4s and I’ve used various other assist of technology throughout my life, like talking scientific calculator, things of that nature.
Jeff Thompson:
You did some math in school?
Bryce Weller:
Yeah. Math in high school and college. So did my talking scientific calculator and still use it sometimes to balance the budget if my phone calculator isn’t talking to me properly or it just won’t listen to me.
Jeff Thompson:
What was your transition like from high school to college with accessibility in mind?
Bryce Weller:
My colleges were very good with that. They were always able to get my books and things into formats that I needed for math. That was the only book that I had in braille in college and other than that they just scanned the books and emailed me the file in a Word document to save onto my laptop.
Bryce Weller:
Or in some cases they got an audio file that I can listen to. But it was really different listening to books in the Word document format on my laptop, so I had to train myself to really learn how to listen that way versus reading through braille. So that was different for me. It took some getting used to.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, myself, I was a reader and then I had the switch to audio and it took a while for me to adapt into that. I mean, listening to books is different, but listening to actual academia stuff is really tough at first.
Bryce Weller:
Yeah. You have to train your mind to really focus on listening to your computer, where most times when you’re listening, before you’ve listening for fun or navigating your desktop. But now where it’s crucial, you’re either going to pass this class but you’re not based on what you get from listening to your computer.
Jeff Thompson:
And what’d you do after college?
Bryce Weller:
After college and after graduate school, that’s when I started my work with the Orioles in June of 2016. I finished up graduate school over at Western Illinois in May of 2016. The month before that, you would enjoy this being from Minnesota and I do believe a Minnesota twins fan potentially, is that Baltimore had me come out to the Camden Yards and I threw out a first pitch to my good friend, Mr. Paul Moeller, who’s the former Minnesota Twins Manager before Baltimore played the Twins and the third home game of the season in April of 2016
Jeff Thompson:
Oh wow. Yeah. He grew up here and went to college here. Good guy.
Bryce Weller:
Yeah. Played for the University of Minnesota Baseball Coach who is still the same coach I believe, and Coach Paul Moeller 30 or 35 years ago.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. Milwaukee Brewers. He had to cross a river, you know what I mean?
Bryce Weller:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s great. On a daily basis, what’s your go to tools that you’re using in assistive technology?
Bryce Weller:
I use JAWS on my computer. I use voiceover on the iPhone. Those are the main two things that I use my computer, the iPhone. I use my talking scientific calculator a little bit like I said before, and use apps on my iPhone to help me navigate around. But mainly the iPhone and my laptops that have JAWS on them.
Jeff Thompson:
What’s your favorite navigation app?
Bryce Weller:
Oh, just depends what I’m doing. I have different apps for different things.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bryce Weller:
Nearby Explorer is the one that I mainly use when I’m in large cities so I can hear all the buses going by and things like that. When I’m out in the country, Nearby Explorer doesn’t work as well, but I’m still able to get my direction and where I’m going.
Jeff Thompson:
Is there anything else you would like to tell the listeners?
Bryce Weller:
I mean basically we just try to change people’s lives by giving them opportunities to take part in programs across the country with my nonprofit. I also work to help companies hire individuals from all disabled groups to be able to take part in finding a job.
Bryce Weller:
I’ve also helped some companies make their websites more accessible as well. So those are some other things that I do, but really focusing on the Beautiful Lives Project and trying to expand it nationwide and even into Canada, across the ocean. Wherever someone wants to do an event, I’m willing to try to set that up for them.
Jeff Thompson:
So check it out, beautifullives.org. Bryce, I want to thank you for taking time to come on to the Blind Abilities and sharing with us the great stuff that you’re doing. Yeah. Go Orioles, right?
Bryce Weller:
Yeah. Go Baltimore and thanks for having me on, Jeff. If people want to email me, they can do that at bryce@beautifullives.org to find out more about events. They can also call me or text me as well. My phone number is 812-899-5673. 812-899-5673.
Bryce Weller:
Keep on doing all these great Podcasts Jeff and letting people come on and tell their stories about whatever is important to them and what has impacted their lives because everyone has their own life story and challenges that need to be shared about how they’ve lived that and overcome those issues and obstacles in their life.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, thank you Bryce. Thanks for all you’re doing and we’ve got to get something going out here for the Minnesota Twins before their game.
Bryce Weller:
Yeah. I’ve been trying with my friend Mr. Dave St. Peter, the President haven’t had any luck though.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, we’ll have to give it a whirl. Right? It seems like you’re doing a great job. Seems like you’re doing a great job.
Bryce Weller:
Thanks for having me on.
Jeff Thompson:
Such a great project. The Beautiful Lives Project. If you want to help support or contribute or volunteer, be sure to contact bryce@beautifullives.org.
Jeff Thompson:
And remember you can enable the Blind Ability Skill on your Amazon device just by saying, “Enable Blind Abilities.”
Jeff Thompson:
Big shout out to CheeChau for his beautiful music and a big thank you to you, the listener. I want to thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed, and until next time, bye bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
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