Photo by Bill Green Jason Polansky uses a Braille writer to do some of his homework in his Thurmont home. The Thurmont Middle School seventh-grader has been blind since birth but stays busy swimming, playing the piano and making speeches. Purchase this photo

"I have a positive attitude about things," he said. "Life is good, but you're always going to have mountains to climb over."

The Thurmont Middle School seventh-grader has had plenty of hikes, having been born with bilateral anophthalmia, a rare syndrome causing a baby to be born with empty eye sockets.

Jason is completely blind. He has undergone several surgeries and has a pair of glass eyes. But he swims, plays the piano and has an exercise regimen that could rival any adult's.

He also likes to talk.

"It's what I do best," he said.

On March 26, Jason used his talent for speech in Baltimore at a ceremony by the National Federation of the Blind, celebrating the release of the 2009 Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar in Baltimore.

"A person from the NFB called and asked if I wanted to speak, and we said yes," Jason said. He joined two other blind children in reading a proclamation for the launch of the coin.

"I don't get nervous," he said. "I just get up there and talk."

For $10 each, 400,000 coins have been minted and are being sold. A portion of the money from sales will be used to support the federation's "Braille Readers Are Leaders" campaign, a national initiative created to double the number of blind children learning Braille by 2015.

"I think they can do it," Jason said.

If Louis Braille were alive today, he wouldn't be happy, Jason said.

"All that work he did to create the system, and only 10 percent of blind people can read Braille," Jason said.

For him, the event was an a place to talk and meet people, but it also signified that more people will be given the opportunity to learn Braille.

Jason wants to take his passion for oration to a grander scale. He hopes to become a motivational speaker one day.

"I want to inspire people to live their lives and God will help you through whatever you're going through," he said. "That's just how life is, you know?"

He paused when he was asked his biggest struggle in coping with blindness.

"I don't know if anything's difficult," he said. "Sometimes people don't think I can do things. Sometimes people are overprotective, like, 'Oh, do you need help? Let me hold your hand.'"

Jason said sometimes it's hard because people aren't educated enough and don't realize that blind people can be independent and live their lives, just as he does.

His independence has led him to play the role of personal GPS to his parents. "When he was younger, he wanted us to read him maps," said Susan Polansky, his mother.

Now, Jason can lead himself around much of downtown Frederick and Francis Scott Key Mall, not to mention Baltimore.

"It's just my thing, you know?" he said, laughing.

"We're pretty proud of him," Susan Polansky said. "He's just a regular kid who happens to be blind."

When the Frederick Kiwanis Club invited Jason to speak, club members asked his mother if he would be OK visiting, because they didn't want to make him feel self-conscious.

"Jason said, 'I can't understand why anyone would think it would make me feel sad to talk about being blind. There's nothing to be sad about,'" his mother said.