October 13, 2026
By Morrison
Recently, Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind’s board decided to discontinue funding for the annual DeafBlind Retreat, a program that had operated for nearly 50 years. The news was devastating for many of us, including me.
Over the past few years, I was unable to attend because of work schedule conflicts. Looking back now, I wish I had made the time. I regret not attending before the retreat was permanently closed. As I spoke with DeafBlind friends and colleagues, I found a mix of emotions: shock, sadness, anger, and regret. Many people had hoped to attend someday but never had the opportunity. Life circumstances and access barriers prevented them from participating. For many, traveling to Seattle was expensive. Airfare alone created a significant barrier. The cost of attending the retreat itself was another challenge, although some participants received scholarships. Employment was also another factor. Many people worked for employers who would not approve the necessary time off or recognize the retreat as a valuable professional development opportunity. I was fortunate to attend when I did.
In 2014, a DeafBlind “auntie” encouraged me to attend the retreat. At the time, I was struggling with my identity as a DeafBlind person because there were very few DeafBlind spaces and very few DeafBlind people in my life besides her. I was juggling three part-time jobs throughout Rochester and had been unable to secure full-time employment. So, financially, attending seemed hopeless. I did not have enough money for airfare or registration. Thankfully, friends, family, and colleagues contributed donations that made the trip possible. I also received a half-week scholarship from the DeafBlind Retreat Team. This made it possible for me to go, and for that I am grateful for the support.
As the big day came, I remember feeling nervous because I did not know what to expect. Upon arriving at the airport in Seattle, I met a group of attendees who appeared just as anxious, excited, happy as I was. Together, we boarded a bus and traveled to Seabeck. When we arrived at the conference center, I was greeted by many people. One person introduced themselves as my SSP (Support Service Provider; a term that the community no longer uses today). At the time, I had no idea what that meant, or what to do with them as my SSP at the retreat. Though I did have this service back in Rochester, it didn’t occur to me that the retreat would have them too.
After checking in and settling into my room, briefly meeting my roommate, I quickly became immersed in the experience. What I remember most was the overwhelming sense of connection and joy. I felt alive. The isolation that often characterized my daily experience as a DeafBlind person was replaced by conversation, participation, and community. I met people from diverse backgrounds, met a few from other countries, participated in activities, engaged in discussions, and spent time learning from people whose experiences both differed from and mirrored my own.
That half-week passed quickly. Too quick… When it was time for me to leave, I did not want to go. Before boarding the bus back to the airport, I made sure to find Jelica Nuccio and aj granda. These two were the spark behind the DeafBlind movement in Seattle. I wanted to learn more about their Tactile Communications program and how I could become involved. We exchanged information, and I was the last person on the bus.
Looking back, I can understand what Seabeck represented, but couldn’t put it together until now. Now, I understand it as something much larger, it became a home for many of us as a DeafBlind-led space where community, culture, leadership, workforce development, and knowledge-sharing came together in one place. Seabeck was not simply a retreat or a “camp for adults.” It was a workforce development opportunity, a leadership development space, and a living example of what can happen when DeafBlind people are trusted to lead, teach, organize, and contribute.
After that experience, I knew I would return. I had to go back.
The following year, I attended for the full week and joined the retreat staff team. It was one of the most important decisions I made as I continued exploring and understanding my DeafBlind identity. The retreat provided more than community. Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat created opportunities for DeafBlind people to work alongside other DeafBlind people. It was a space where we could indeed contribute, organize, teach, facilitate, coordinate, and learn from one another. By 2016, I was fully invested in the experience. The retreat taught me how to co-lead with other Deafblind people, collaborate, and participate within a DeafBlind-centered environment. It gave me opportunities to immerse myself in Protactile and deepen my understanding of DeafBlind culture, language, and community practices.
From 2017 through 2019, I returned as a volunteer. Each year was a rewarding experience that left me wanting to come back. Every retreat brought new opportunities and experiences
to work alongside DeafBlind community members, support participants, share knowledge, and contribute to a space intentionally built around DeafBlind ways of communicating and interacting. During those years, I witnessed firsthand how the retreat functioned as more than a gathering. It was a place where knowledge and stories was shared across generations from the old to the young, where emerging leaders gained experience, and where DeafBlind people took on meaningful roles that strengthened our community.
Most importantly, it allowed DeafBlind people to learn through experience. We could make mistakes, learn from them, teach others, and develop new skills. We could step away from the barriers, misunderstandings, and isolation that many of us encountered in our workplaces and communities back home.
What made Seabeck unique was that it was designed by DeafBlind people for DeafBlind people. Many retreats and programs serving our community are led primarily by individuals who are not DeafBlind, and often focus on service delivery or centers on a rehabilitation approach. Seabeck operated differently. DeafBlind people shaped the environment (DeafBlind space), determined community norms, shared knowledge, and created opportunities for participation. We didn’t feel inadequate. As a result, the retreat fostered belonging, leadership, community participation, and a deeper connection to DeafBlind culture and identity.
Participants gained experience staffing registration tables, leading workshops, facilitating activities, coordinating schedules, organizing CN/SSP services for each DeafBlind person that attended, supporting wellness groups, mentoring newer attendees, and managing aspects of retreat operations. These were not simply volunteer opportunities. They were opportunities to develop practical skills, gain experience, and contribute to a DeafBlind-centered community. For many DeafBlind people, Seabeck was one of the few places where accommodations were fully integrated into every aspect of the experience rather than treated as a burden that many employers “feel.”
As the years progressed, there were changes in leadership that created uncertainty about the retreat’s future. Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind ultimately sought new leadership for the program, and that responsibility fell to Hess, who worked diligently to support both the retreat and the DeafBlind Program that is community focused. Although I only met Hess a handful of times, I found them to be warm, approachable, and genuinely supportive unlike the previous leadership. Their commitment to the DeafBlind community was evident in the way they engaged with participants and worked to sustain opportunities for DeafBlind people.
The decision to eliminate both the retreat and Hess’s position was not inevitable. Yet the loss extends beyond leadership changes or funding decisions. Alternative solutions could have been explored such as community partnerships, fundraising efforts, grant opportunities, and collaborative leadership models that may have offered pathways to preserve both the retreat and the role that helped support it. Instead, the DeafBlind community lost not only a nearly fifty-year tradition but also an important source of space, coordination, continuity, and community connection.
What makes this loss especially significant is that there are very few spaces like Seabeck anywhere in the country, and internationally too. For many DeafBlind people, Seabeck was not simply another conference or retreat. It was a space intentionally designed around DeafBlind communication, DeafBlind culture, Protactile philiosophy and practices (using co-presence and contact space), and DeafBlind leadership. There are few places where DeafBlind people can gather in large numbers, work alongside one another, share tactile-based language and knowledge, and participate without constantly adapting ourselves to environments designed by others. Especially, feeling as if we need to be helped when we don’t, which is a common mindset led by those who are not DeafBlind. Therefore, the significance of this loss can be difficult for people outside the DeafBlind community to fully grasp.
For readers outside the DeafBlind community, imagine if a major Deaf-led or Blind-led institution abruptly eliminated the National Association of the Deaf of the National Federation for the Blind conference after decades of bringing Deaf or Blind people together from across the country. Or imagine if a longstanding Black leadership institute, women’s leadership retreat, LGBTQIA+ community gathering, or Latinx leadership conference were suddenly discontinued by the very organization responsible for supporting that community. Imagine if a community’s legacy came to an abrupt end with no opportunities to invite the community to help prevent this. It’s more so prevalent when this is targeted on marginalized communities. Many people would immediately recognize the loss for what it is – not simply the cancellation of an event, but the loss of a space where relationships, identity, and confidence are built, culture is shared, leaders are developed, knowledge is passed between generations, and community members find connection with one another. That is how many DeafBlind people view the loss of Seabeck.
The difference is that the DeafBlind community has far fewer opportunities of this kind to begin with. While many communities have multiple national organizations, conferences, retreats, leadership programs, and community spaces, DeafBlind-specific spaces are rare, hard to come by. When one disappears, there are often few, if any, comparable alternatives. This creates a huge ripple effect. This is why the closure of Seabeck feels extremely impactful where the pain is felt by many – including myself. It was not simply the loss of a retreat. It was the loss of one of the few DeafBlind-centered spaces in the nation where people could gather, build relationships, develop workforce skills, share language and culture, and contribute to a community designed by and for DeafBlind people. For an already underserved community, removing one of the few longstanding spaces specifically created for us causes harm, a great deal of harm. Not because of intent, but because of impact.
Rather than eliminating the programs’ model like Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat, organizations across the country should be studying and replicating its model. The DeafBlind community needs more spaces like this, not fewer or none. We need investment in DeafBlind-led leadership, workforce development opportunities, Protactile-rich environments, and community-centered programs that bring people together across generations. The DeafBlind community already faces significant barriers to participation, employment, communication access, and community connection (a place of belonging). When resources serving an already underserved population are reduced or eliminated, the result is harm, regardless of the intention behind the decision. The DeafBlind community does not have an abundance of programs, retreats, leadership opportunities, or workforce development spaces. We have very few. That is why preserving programs like Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat matters.
When one of the longest-standing DeafBlind-led spaces in the country disappears, the loss extends far beyond a single retreat. It affects workforce opportunities, leadership development, community relationships, cultural knowledge-sharing, and the ability of future generations to learn from those who came before them. The impact of Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat extended beyond workforce development and community leadership.
Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat also served as a place where our stories were created, shared, and preserved. For nearly fifty years, DeafBlind people from across the country and around the world gathered there to exchange experiences, pass knowledge between generations, discuss emerging ideas, and document the evolving history of our community. Relationships formed there often continued long after the retreat ended, becoming the foundation for future collaborations, advocacy efforts, programs, and leadership initiatives.
Beyond its role as a community gathering space, Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat represented an important opportunity for DeafBlind scholars, researchers, and community practitioners. Spaces where DeafBlind people gather in large numbers are rare. For DeafBlind researchers seeking to document community history, language development, workforce experiences, leadership practices, Protactile, and lived experiences – all of this without bias from sighted folks or non-DeafBlidn researchers, Seabeck provided a unique environment for observation, learning, collaboration, and community-based inquiry. At a time when the DeafBlind community continues to be underrepresented in research and academic literature, spaces like this contribute to the development of new scholarship, new perspectives, and new knowledge generated by DeafBlind people themselves. The loss of such a space makes that work more difficult. It reduces opportunities for that raw and organic connection, collaboration, mentorship, and the sharing of ideas that often inspire future research, publications, and community initiatives. In many ways, Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat was not only a retreat. It was a living archive of DeafBlind experiences, histories, languages, relationships, and aspirations. The stories created there continue to shape our community. The challenge now is ensuring there are spaces where future DeafBlind generations can continue creating their own.
For nearly fifty years, Seabeck demonstrated what is possible when DeafBlind people have a place to gather, work, learn, teach, conduct research, and contribute together. The DeafBlind community deserves spaces where we can build careers, strengthen leadership, preserve our histories, expand scholarship, and contribute to our collective future. Seabeck was one of those rare places.
Its closure represents more than the loss of a retreat. It represents the loss of a community institution that helped shape generations of DeafBlind leaders, workers, researchers, mentors, and community members. We should not be reducing these opportunities. We should be preserving them, strengthening them, and creating more of them across the country.
About the Author
Morrison is a DeafBlind advocate, educator, researcher, and founder of Protactile Connects. Morrison’s work focuses on DeafBlind leadership, Protactile language and culture, workforce development, youth transition services, and community-centered systems change. Having participated in and volunteered at the Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat, Morrison continues to advocate for DeafBlind-led programs and spaces throughout the United States.
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