{"id":475,"date":"2016-02-03T22:41:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T22:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/?p=475"},"modified":"2017-05-23T19:30:43","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T19:30:43","slug":"devoted-dreamer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/2016\/02\/03\/devoted-dreamer\/","title":{"rendered":"Devoted Dreamer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know now that Paloma was born with a purpose \u2013 to improve the lives of blind and visually impaired children. <\/em>She\u2019s already done so.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Kelsey Anderson<\/em><\/p>\n

What comes to mind when you hear the word brave? Perhaps a firefighter, a policeman or a soldier at war? Whatever man or woman you think of, get ready to add a new hero to that list. Meet Paloma Rambana \u2013 a girl with a huge heart and an even greater purpose. When she was just three days old, Paloma was diagnosed with Peter\u2019s Anomaly, a rare eye condition that causes her to see with 20\/200 vision. To clarify, objects that are visible to us from 200 feet away are\u00a0 visible to Paloma from a mere 20 feet away. A diagnosis of this magnitude can greatly impact a child\u2019s educational success since 80 percent of learning occurs through what we see.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before Paloma\u2019s mother, Elizabeth, and her husband came to the conclusion that Florida had a funding gap for blind or visually impaired children between the ages of 6 and 13. Currently, children at birth through age 5, and teens from 14 to 18 receive Financial support, medical equipment and mobility\u00a0 training from the state of Florida for little to no cost \u2013 but visually impaired children ages 6 through 13 and their families are left without any assistance. Soon after discovering this startling fact, Paloma made the brave decision to become an advocate for other children her age who also were visually impaired and needed help.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Paloma met with Florida legislators during the 2015 legislative session to advocate for the cause. Her efforts received plenty of attention,\u00a0 including a front page spread in the Tallahassee Democrat. Following her meeting with government officials, Paloma led a rally from the Department of Education to the historic State Capitol, where she gave a speech with the help of the executive directors of the Lighthouse of the Big Bend and the Florida Association of Agencies Serving the Blind. In August, Paloma took to social media and created #FundTheGap \u2013 an awareness campaign built not only to promote the cause, but also to educate and inform others about the visual impairments that affect our youth. On June 23, Paloma\u2019s hard work began to pay off. Governor Rick Scott agreed to establish a children\u2019s program that ensures $1 million will be provided to children\u2019s blind services funding, with half of that amount recurring each year.<\/p>\n

“Paloma knows that my husband and I can pay for her services and devices, so she\u2019s not advocating for herself. She\u2019s advocating for the nearly 1,000 children in Florida who are registered with the Division of Blind Services but are not being served due to this funding gap,\u201d Paloma\u2019s mother explains.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEven when times are tough,<\/em>
\nkeep your head up and keep moving!\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

Although Paloma has already reached incredible new heights on her journey to fund the gap, her work is not over. Due to the high cost of medical equipment and devices required to support a child with a visual impairment, the approximate total cost required to fully fund the program is $8 million. With the help of her family and community members, Paloma is already organizing another rally to the State Capitol to lobby for even more assistance for children in her age group.<\/p>\n

Though she faces her share of daily challenges, Paloma refuses to let her condition hold her back from living the life of a happy 10-year-old girl. She enjoys crafting, horseback riding and attending troop meetings with her Girl Scout Troop. She is a part of the equestrian team at Maclay School and enjoys Skyping with her best friends in her Fifth-grade class.<\/p>\n

Paloma urges other children who are affected by blindness or visual impairments to stay positive. \u201cEven when times are tough, keep your head up and keep moving!\u201d she encourages.<\/p>\n

When asked about her daughter\u2019s future, Elizabeth believes that she has the potential to do great things. \u201cI hope Paloma will live a long, happy and healthy life. I\u2019d like for her to pursue higher education and a profession in the future\u201d she says. \u201cAlthough she often says she\u2019d like to become a \u2018pop star lawyer,\u2019 I\u2019d be just fine with the \u2018lawyer\u2019 part. Paloma would make a great lawyer \u2013 she\u2019s a real critical thinker and a great people person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paloma credits Ms. Jennifer, her vision teacher since she was two-months-old, with providing her the confidence she needs to be herself and learn like no one else!<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of her surgeons told me that if this should have happened to any family, it should be ours. For years, I struggled to understand what the surgeon could have possibly meant,\u201d Elizabeth says. \u201cI know now that Paloma was born with a purpose \u2013 to improve the lives of blind and visually impaired children. She\u2019s already done so.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about Paloma\u2019s #FundTheGap campaign, or to register to join Paloma on December 1 as she marches once again to our historic State Capitol, visit palomasdream.com or facebook.com\/palomasdream.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know now that Paloma was born with a purpose \u2013 to improve the lives of blind and visually impaired children. She\u2019s already done so. By Kelsey Anderson What comes to mind when you hear the word brave? Perhaps a firefighter, a policeman or a soldier at war? Whatever man or woman you think of, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,84,12],"tags":[49,50,51,52,53],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-cover","category-health","tag-fund","tag-gap","tag-paloma","tag-rambana","tag-vision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions\/482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}