NORTHRIDGE : Deaf Students at Work on Float for Tournament of Roses

With a month and half to go until the new year, deaf students at Cal State Northridge have started decorating their Tournament of Roses Parade float: a giant leopard with her two cubs.

“We are just starting from scratch right now. The float is not done. . . . We have worked on the paws of the mother leopard and the side of the body,” said Sandra Jahn, a deaf graduate student at CSUN, who spent Saturday working on the float.

“The float is magnificent. Beautiful. And huge,” Jahn said.

She has spent the last seven years at CSUN, and this year is chairwoman of the Deaf CSUNian Rose Parade Committee.

For eight years now, the National Center on Deafness at CSUN--which has the largest higher education program for the deaf outside of Gallaudet University in Washington--has teamed up with Kodak to build award-winning floats to raise public awareness about the deaf and the hearing-impaired.

The center provides sign language, interpreters, note takers and tutors to deaf students at CSUN.

“My goal is that people in general begin to learn that deaf people are like them and the deaf community, in the nation, are hard-working people and love to get along with everyone,” Jahn said.

This weekend, the dry materials will be added to the float.

During the last week of the year, about 200 volunteers, both deaf and hearing, are expected to help decorate the giant leopard float with yellow, gold and orange marigolds.