Photo: Pete Souza/the White House

Last Friday, President Obama met with a very special  group of visitors at the White House. The guests and their canine companions were from the Helen Keller National Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The center offers intensive rehabilitation training for deaf-blind youngsters and adults. The five students, two staffers, and three volunteers from the center were on tour in Washington, DC.

Last week was Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness week. The Helen Keller National Center was established in the late 1960s by Congress. Helen Keller, a deaf and blind author, political activist, and lecturer died at the age of 87 in 1968. As a child, Keller’s world of isolation was opened up with language by her teacher, Anne Sullivan. That breakthrough is at the heart of the famous play and movie called, “The Miracle Worker.”