Heritage for the Blind

A risky operation two years ago gave Brooklyn mother Cassy Rivera a special Christmas gift — the gift of being able to see her daughters’ smile.

Since then, the 38-year-old has assumed a new attitude and view on life that has made her into New York City’s ultimate do-gooder, as the New York Daily News recently put it.

Her gestures are small but plentiful. She’ll lend money and give away subway fare cards in spite of her own economic difficulties.
Call her the poor man’s philanthropist. Rivera just wants to see her beneficiaries smile, something she couldn’t view before.

“Since I got my sight back, I don’t like to see people with frowns. I really don’t like that,” Rivera told the New York Daily News recently. “I love seeing people smile and laugh.”

The Brooklynite mother of two daughters originally lost much of her sight to uveitis, with the rest departing when delivering her second.

Two years ago, when she was broke and jobless, she underwent a daring procedure orchestrated by a doctor at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary that traded damaged lens for prosthetics.

When Rivera couldn’t return to her career as a medical assistant thanks to vision problems, she turned her attention to those in worse situations than herself. Call it her own gesture of thanks for charity thrown her own way.

On a mere $659 a month, she manages to make ends meet as well as contribute $50 a month to help a wide range of needy folks — from a homeless man in her neighborhood to a woman facing foreclosure to people facing medical woes they can’t afford to treat. And the list goes on.

Her friends call her crazy but she realizes how fleeting the gift of sight can be. She’s well aware that she may end up losing it again. That’s what motivates her now to do what she can do.

“When I couldn’t see, I was dead. I couldn’t do anything,” Rivera said. “Now, I can see people laughing and saying, ‘Thank you,’ to me. “My happiness is my sight, and I will never, ever, ever stop loving and giving.”

Fido’s eyes gone to the dogs, and you don’t know what to do? An emergency pet hospital in Raritan, New Jersey may have just what the doctor ordered.

The veterinarians at Animerge are offering ophthalmology services specialized for your pooch, who suffers from eye disease just like you do. From glaucoma to cataracts to blindness to ocular trauma corneal and retinal disease, dogs get it all.

“Just like in humans, pets can develop a range of eye conditions that can seriously affect vision,” said Dr. Michael Brown, one of two canine ophthalmologists on staff. “Our goal as ophthalmologists is to accurately diagnose the condition and develop a treatment plan that can either correct the underlying problem, or reduce the risk of further vision loss.”

Ailing canines are usually referred to the pet hospital by their so-called general practice veterinarian. Before going to their pet’s first appointment, dog owners are encouraged to have copies of their canine’s health history on hand, including information on recent diagnostic testing and current oral or topical medications the dog may be taking.

The doctors during the first appointment will put your pooch through a series of diagnostic tests, including a vision test, biomicroscopy and indirect ophthalmoscopy. which gauge the level of visually impairment and help them to make an accurate diagnosis.

“We’re proud to use the latest veterinary technology for diagnosis and surgery,” said Dr. Bradford Holmberg, the hospital’s other veterinary ophthalmologist. “Animerge was the first veterinary hospital in the world to offer cataract removal using the Whitestar elite phacoemulsification unit, and we continue to set the standard for advanced veterinary care that’s compassionate and professional.”

Both Drs. Holmberg and Brown are certified by the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists. After four years in vet school, the two doctors served a one-year internship and a three-year residency in veterinary ophthalmology.

To find out more, go to: www.animerge.net.

It was only a day before the Christmas holiday, and visually impaired employees at the Lighthouse for the Blind in Overland, Missouri are hard at work.

The group has been employing blind residents of the St. Louis metropolitan area since the Great Depression, putting its ranks into action, usually in light manufacturing positions.

For the past two years, 34-year-old Jonathan Clemons has logged his time on the assembly line, with his sights set for moving into sales eventually.

“We have a passion for what we do,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently. “We work just as hard as the average person, and I feel we can put out as good of a product as anybody else.”

Product lines have come and gone at the Lighthouse — from brooms and mops in 1933 to paints and cleaning supplies. The organization services niche markets with a majority of its product going to the military, thanks to the so-called Berry Amendment, which requires the Pentagon to buy American-made products. That has enabled the group to survive despite the mass exodus of U.S. manufacturing jobs elsewhere. The Lighthouse has stayed to its niche to achieve success because they serve the market that the heavy hitters consider too small. The big dogs’ loss is their gain.

The federal government’s contracts are vitally important to keeping the employer of 70 blind people in St. Louis full-time at $9 an hour with full benefits.

Visually impaired residents, who would normally go on disability — Supplemental Security Income, are turned into taxpayers, thanks to the Lighthouse, providing immeasurable benefits to society, said John Thompson, the group’s president, to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Making pecan pie for the holidays used to be second nature to Loretta Purvis of Daytona Beach, Florida but the lost of her sight a year ago made it pretty much impossible until recently, the Orlando Sentinel recently reported.

With the help of the Orlando Sentinel’s Family Fund Holiday Campaign, Purvis relearned the art of preparing my most beloved recipe. It brings memories of her pre-blindness days when she used to bake all the time. Now, she uses her renewed love for creating baked good to keep her busy in her new life.

The Center of the Visually Impaired in Daytona Beach, one of several charities supposed by the newspaper’s annual appeal, helped Purvis renew her passion for baking by teaching her many vital tips to think about.

In a series of free classes over a 13-week period for four hours one day a week, the center teaches blind Floridians get their daily living skills back after losing their vision.

Purvis began to take part in the center’s programs after doctors’ efforts to remove an aneurysm behind her optic nerve resulted in her going blind in both eyes. It doomed her employment prospects, forcing her to quit her job as an appointment setter. She couldn’t even see her grandchildren’s faces.

Everyday tasks she never had to think about doing before her blindness were difficult and challenging for her to pull off. She had to relearn everything from writing her name to counting money to walking independently. “I felt so out of place,” she told the Orlando Sentinel.

Her condition forced her spouse to take on responsibilities such as cooking and grocery shopping, a task he had only accomplished very few times in his life.
To cook again, Purvis had to make some accommodations with some encouragement from the center’s staff. Tactile bumps were applied to measuring cups, microwave buttons and oven dials.

It was difficult at first but she persevered to a point where this past Thanksgiving she did most of the cooking.

A behemoth nonprofit organization that claims to help the homeless and impoverished recently took issue with the Heritage for the Blind‘s auto donation program. Needless to say, they’ve got a conflict of interest — their own auto donation program. No, that’s not hypocritical. Not at all.

So you probably understand the situation. They’re trying to corner the auto-donation market by throwing around their money, which, unlike for a lot of nonprofits, appears to be in great supply. The group had assets of over $275 million and contributions of $50 million and in-kind donations of $ last year. That doesn’t include the over $600 million in government grants. It’s hardly chump change.

So, why do they need to try to undermine other nonprofits to line their coffers with even more money? Who knows? It all seems a little bit unfair and greedy on their part. The Goliath appears to want to kill the David in this situation.

Surely, the dollars they’ve spent to point fingers at competitors could be better utilized on the people they claim to serve through their “ministry of service,” which employs more than 15,000 people nationwide. Sounds as if the top 1 percent of nonprofits is trying to cut the lower 99 percent of nonprofits out. How charitable of them. Just in time for the holiday season.

First of all, the group, which shall remain nameless, suggests that Heritage for the Blind is a sham organization that does little to help its intended beneficiaries. Please.

Heritage for the Blind has been around since the 1980s. If it’s not a legitimate charity, then why hasn’t the Internal Revenue Service closed its doors? That is the question. The simple answer is because Heritage for the Blind is a legitimate nonprofit. It’s hardly a scam.

Among the many services it offers, the nonprofit gorup provides free publication and distribution of Braille and large-print materials — from religious to consumer-related printed matter.

It also helps the blind and visually impaired find governmental benefits from over 1650 programs across 50 states and provides a medical alert services that assists in coping and responding to medical emergencies. This includes helping the blind and visually impaired find relevant healthcare professionals and get information on vision rehabilitation services, among other things.

In addition, the group also offers its self-help Vision Loss Resource website that includes online tips, advice and information for those with vision loss. The online resource covers topics ranging from legal rights to eye disorders to how to find an eye doctor to practical living. Heritage for the Blind’s Auto Donation Program offers prospective donors an easy way to give back without having to open their pocketbooks and assists in taking older more polluting vehicles off the roads, improving the environment as well.

The charity understands the plight faced by the blind and visually impaired that affects everyone around them and aims to help them realize that they are not alone in their daily struggles. There are surrounded by concerned and compassionate people who want to help.

Keeping track of currency is one of the challenges blind people face because it’s more difficult for them to differentiate from denominations.

That is exactly why Heritage for the Blind offers money handling tips and techniques to help the blind gain some independence for this front.

First of all, it’s highly recommended that the blind use the adaptive wallet to keep their money organized. The main advantage is that it has a multitude of separate pockets in which the user can place various denominations for easier access.

In addition, the adaptive wallet has pockets particularly designed to keep change. That way the user will not only know what they’re giving out but also what they’re bringing in. It makes it more difficult for the blind or visually impaired to be taken advantage of.

The Heritage for the Blind also teaches those with vision loss how to easily distinguish between denominations through detecting differences in texture and size. With such skills, the blind or visually impaired will be able to know whether they have received the correct change.

There are also special folding techniques to use to detect denominations. For example, a $10.00 bill will be folded differently from the folding of a $5.00 bill. Once someone with vision loss is totally aware of the folding of every denomination in their wallet, they can independently use money without fear of being taken advantage of.

Without the ability to see clearly, the blind and visually impaired people need to more aware of their money’s security. This is why Heritage for the Blind encourages them to wear zippered pocket jackets and coats. They can hardly lose their money if it is placed in secured pockets. A fanny pack that can be concealed under outerwear is a good investment as well.

As for credit cards, it is advised that the blind or visually impaired be wary of using debit or credit cards.

One of the Heritage for the Blind’s main goals is to train those with vision loss in everyday skills that allow them to live more comfortable lives.

Got someone with vision loss on your holiday list who is difficult to shop for and seems to have everything?

Finally, by popular demand, the blind and visually impaired can now avoid nuclear radiation with a product soon to be on the market known as the talking Geiger counter, according to a recent Japan Times report. Who would have thunk? Well, in post-meltdown Japan, the sky is the limits for businesses trying to give the nation’s citizens tool to protest themselves from nuclear fallout.

Such is life in Japan in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant debacle early this year. You can’t be too careful. The talking counter, which measures the radiation, speaks its results so that the user can redirect their path to elude harm.

It’s the brainchild of a coalition of parties, including the Fukushima Prefectural Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired, Sanwa Manufacturing Co., which makes lighting equipment and Tele Japan Co., which markets radiation devices. It will be available, beginning early January, at a price of 50,000 Yen.

The talking Geiger is just one of many products being developed in Japan to deal with the fallout of the 2011 nuclear incident.

Toshiba Corp., for example, recently announced its offering a portable camera that detects gamma radiation and display “hot spots” when photos are imported for viewing on a personal computer. The company is conducting demonstration projects with the local Fukishma government to find uses for and to tweak the device.

A talking Geiger counter? Who would have thought? Proof that trying times can breed invention.

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has called upon the federal government and the U.S. Congress to implement stronger standards regarding accessibility efforts by colleges and universities for blind and visually impaired students.

It is in response to a final report released by the Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials, which was created by the U.S. Congress as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008.

It was devised to determine ways to make educational products as accessible as possible to students with disabilities as to students without disabilities so that the same materials can be used by both student populations at the same cost.
It’s a matter of civil rights for the disabled to have equal access to educational materials as their sighted peers, noted Dr. Marc Maurer, NFB president, in a press release.

“The blind and other students with disabilities have an equal right to participate in higher education. Access to textbooks and other instructional materials has historically presented the greatest barrier to a truly equal education for blind students. The transition from print to digital materials presents great challenges; but, if managed properly, it will mean that blind students and other students with disabilities will, for the first time, have equal access to educational content on the same terms as their non-disabled peers. This report presents recommendations that, if properly implemented, will help to ensure that this potential is realized,” he said.

In its report, the commission made recommendations designed to improve the production and distribution of accessible instructional materials for blind and visually impaired students — spanning everything from printed and digital books to journals to course packs to articles to tests to videos to instructor-created materials and websites to hardware to firmware to software.

Added Mark Riccobono, executive director of NFB’s Jernigan Institute and a member of the commission, in the press release: “Ultimately the success of this report will depend on whether Congress acts to implement its recommendations, but the recommendations themselves are strong and will make a real difference to postsecondary students with disabilities if implemented.

“As the report notes, while there is some activity in the mainstream market to include accessibility in electronic textbooks and other products, it will take a combination of market incentives and government regulations in order to ensure that the blind and other students with disabilities are placed on equal footing with their peers,” he added.

If Congress and/or the federal government fails to heed the commission’s recommendations, Riccobono fears students with disabilities will face a greater disadvantage than ever before in terms of equal access to educational materials.
“We therefore urge Congress to act swiftly on the commission’s recommendations,” he said.

New York’s Industries for the Blind has concluded that it through its eight nonprofit partners contributed a total of $168 million statewide to the state’s economy.

“The key for improving prospects for people who are blind and want to work is improving opportunity and that’s the goal of this impact study,” said Rudy D’Amico, president and chief executive officer of the Central Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired (CABVI), said recently, according to Herkimer Evening Telegram.
The economic impact study, conducted by the University of Buffalo, looks at economic and quality of life factors in regions of the state with higher than normal employment of blind or visually employees.

Of the $168 million generated by blind or visually impaired workers, $88.3 million came from direct sales of nearly 22,000 orders and $80 million in spin-off economic activity.

In central New York, that impact is an average of $17 million a year, including nearly $4.5 million in payroll activity. But in 2011, it is expected that it will exceed $37 million, more than triple what it was in 2000, D’Amico told the Herkimer Evening Telegram during a recent conference at the group’s Central Industries manufacturing plant, which employs 200 blind and non-blind workers producing 30 product lines.

“There is a perception the challenges associated with the unique needs of an employee who is blind cannot be overcome. This is not true,” said D’Amico. It just takes compassion and cooperation to provide the accommodations needed to allow blind and visually impaired workers to thrive.

A cadre of local elected officials chimed in to rave D’Amico’s group’s efforts to improving the communities it serves.

“CABVI is so important in playing such a significant role for individuals who want and need that chance to work, said State Sen. Joseph Griffo. “Many individuals suffer from blindness from birth or injury and are frustrated with the challenges they have to face and confront. Trying to find a job compounds that frustration.”

Said New York State Assemblyman Marc Butler: “Many of us have believed in the high quality and reliable workforce here at CABVI and now its there in black and white.”

After eight long years, blind lawyer Cathryn Bonnette has finally won admittance to the District of Columbia bar, according to a WUSA-TV report.

After law school, she launched a lawsuit in two states compelling bar examiners to permit use of adaptive software on bar exams. The blind woman had sued the National Conference of Bar Examiners because they wouldn’t allow her to sit the test using the assistive technology that translates text into electronic form that she can listen to.

Even though courts in three states and the District of Columbia have issued injunctions favoring Bonnette and her blind legal peers, the NCBE continues to fight the suit, claiming they accommodate blind and visually candidates enough by offering in-person oral and braille exams.

The group cites cost, security and program concerns as reasons not to heed to Bonnette’s request.

But she counters their complaints, telling WUSA-TV that: “You graduate law school. You’ve done well, and all of a sudden to take that licensing exam you can’t get the software you need.”

The blind lawyer was able to pass the bar in the District of Columbia last July using the software she was most comfortable with after the court had intervened on her behalf, issuing an injunction.

After being officially sworn in, Bonnette vowed to fight on behalf of the disabled in obtaining access. Now, she’s bracing for a state-by-state fight to help other blind law students in her shoes win the same right to use the software they want to use when they go to sit the bar exam.