Alumni Representative
Many members of the Board of Directors of the Overbrook School for the Blind know the school from the outside in. Donna Brown, the Board’s latest Alumni Representative, knows it inside out. She went to OSB for 12 years, lived there as well, and used the skills and confidence she built as a student to launch a successful life as an athlete and educator.
Brown was a four-time Paralympian back in the 70s and 80s, a winner of five medals in track and later, swimming. She spent 37 years teaching at West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind, retiring in 2020. Since then, she has substituted at the school, coached its athletic teams, and become more involved with the American Council of the Blind, joining its Board of Directors this year.
Over that time, she says, there has been a seismic shift in educational opportunities for the visually impaired, as more school systems absorb students, and OSB has expanded its educational scope as well. What hasn’t changed, she believes, is the atmosphere and focus OSB provides, and the confidence and skill set that often provides.
``I ran into a former student during the last Alumni Reunion,’ she says. ``He was two years ahead of me in school, and he didn't come from the best home situation and had had a rough time. He was very successful and had employment all through his adult years. I asked him how he had done it. He said that a lot of it was due to the foundation that we got at Overbrook to teach us the independent skills we needed. He said, `I had to use all of those.’
``I think Overbrook helped us with all that by giving us the opportunities to gain all those skills we needed. And to encourage us to learn how to figure as much as we could on our own. Nobody else was going to do for me, what I can do for myself.’’
A native of Pottstown who lived on campus, Brown’s returns to the school will become more frequent now as she attends all the board meetings and distributes the discourse to her fellow alum. The role, she says, ``has given me a whole different understanding of the school as to how it gets funding and resources,’ than when she was a student or even a teacher in the state-run West Virginia system.
``It’s really a special place,’ she says. ``One that I am proud to be a part of.’’
