At 8:45am Eastern Time, exactly 80 years ago today, some 100 blinded veterans gathered in one room, the size of which has never been documented, perhaps because so few of the attendees could see it. The room’s location was a residential school for boys, converted temporarily by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration into a training facility for veterans who had returned from World War II with little or no remaining sight. Many of them were recovering from other severe injuries.

Within an hour or two, the group had voted to organize a fraternity of sorts to serve and help one another. Near unanimously, the group voted to name the organization the Blinded Veterans Association.

The organization went to work immediately as much more than a brotherhood, reaching out to seek and give help anywhere and everywhere possible to do so. In a more modern and smaller world, the means for giving and receiving that assistance may have revolutionized over 80 years, but the mission remains the same: To promote the welfare of blinded veterans so that, notwithstanding their disabilities, they may take their rightful place in the community and work with their fellow citizens toward the creation of a peaceful world.

May that same mission continue for another 80 years, or for as long as work still remains in attempting to create that peaceful world.