Classes show blind Montanans the way to independence

[Posted by alaurie_97@yahoo.com]

Classes show blind Montanans the way to independence
By CHRIS RUBICH Billings Gazette | Posted: Saturday, July 31, 2010



HELENA – A teenager preparing to enter university life for the first
time.

A 26-year-old who composes music on computers and would like his own
radio show.

A cancer survivor. A military veteran. Grandparents. A mother of
three. A builder of custom motorcycles. A Crow Tribe member skilled in
signing, storytelling and sharing her heritage.

A 29-year-old learning to sew, and an 89-year-old doing the first
stitches that she’s sewn in years.

The individuals from across Montana are diverse in their ages,
histories and goals but drawn together by one thing. Each is totally
blind or has severe vision loss.

They are among 26 Montanans who learned skills and strategies for more
independent living at the four-week Montana Association for the Blind
Summer Orientation Program.

The classes at Carroll College taught lessons from marking household
items to identifying them by touch to crossing busy streets when
unable to see passing vehicles.

Students shared their dreams, challenges and frustrations.

Some long to see the faces of children or grandchildren. Most hope to
rely less on family and friends, while others are seeking or trying to
hold on to careers in a visually oriented world.

Kay Stevens, the SOP director, regards the orientation program’s
primary benefits as allowing students to “get around independently and
be safe.”

*****

This year’s courses included Braille, orientation and mobility, Aids
to Daily Living, low-vision technology, computers, keyboarding,
discussion, cooking, sewing, crafts, woodworking and exercise.

Learning is very hands-on, from trying out programs that read aloud
what’s on the computer screen to learning how to thread a needle that
one can’t see to matching socks or identifying denominations of money.

In discussion classes, instructor Vicky Greany, who is fully blind,
leads students as they share their experiences of sorrow, remorse,
denial, anger and acceptance of their vision loss. For many, the
experience is one of grieving.

Other classes build skills starting with simple things made complex by
vision loss, things such as coordinating clothing colors, identifying
cleaning supplies, shaving, even locating keyholes with your fingers
so that a key may be inserted.

A funnel can help when pouring cereal into a bowl. Braille labels
allow accurate measuring of ingredients for a cake. Special guides for
knives or plunger-style choppers boost safety when cutting up
vegetables.

Students attend classes from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., then go to
assemblies with speakers who discuss services for low-vision
residents, the Talking Books Library, eye disorders, special equipment
for diabetics who have trouble seeing their glucose monitors,
medication bottles and syringes for injecting insulin.

*****

Evening and weekend activities include learning, exercise such as
swimming or just celebrating the people at SOP.

Talent night included performances from a choirs or students and
instructors, rock songs on a student’s saxophone, skits and jokes.
Magoo Night brought laughter and cringes of recognition as
participants shared humorous moments tied to their vision loss.

Between classes, students missing their own pets hugged Shadow, the
guide dog of crafts/keyboarding instructor Rhonda Cochrane of
Anaconda, when the dog was out of harness and off-duty. And
participants shared information about hooking up with programs to get
such a helper and the orientation skills that the individual needed to
qualify for a guide dog.

Safety around vehicles was a common topic of discussion, from dangers
with vehicles pulling out unexpectedly in parking lots to traffic
signals that don’t beep to let those who can’t see know when lights
change.

Students taking orientation and mobility classes grew to appreciate
intersections with curbs marked with crosshatching or upside-down
metal bumps, known as truncated domes, that help them identify
crossings by using their canes.

People with little sight learn to listen to traffic sounds to help
them know when to cross streets safely. And students were surprised at
the lack of engine noise to alert them to approaching hybrid vehicles.

*****

The Summer Orientation Program started in the mid-1940s west of Helena
and moved to Bozeman, then Great Falls before finding a base at
Carroll four years ago. It operates once a year, with the Montana
Association for the Blind picking up the cost for students’ classes,
lodging and food.

Students need to have an eye exam to verify their vision difficulty
and be healthy enough to participate in the program.

The program usually attracts 22 or 23 students and about 20 staff
members, including volunteers. Students have included lawyers, a
doctor, a judge and more.

The cost usually runs about $75,000 a session, or about $3,700 per
student. This year’s class was bigger than usual, so expenses probably
will be higher.

Stevens has a long association with the state’s only residential
educational program for adults who are blind.

Her mother, who was fully blind, went to the camp in 1948, and Stevens
attended as a student in 1992 and 1993. She returned to teach cooking
from 1994 to 1996 before becoming director.

Like many students over the years, Stevens, who lives in Great Falls,
had always been very myopic. When she was 35, she started surgeries
and laser treatments for glaucoma. She later had surgery to place an
artificial valve in her eye, but lost all sight.

“I knew I couldn’t stay home and do nothing,” she said.

So, she went to college and took correspondence courses for the blind.
She has retired after years working with Head Start.

SOP faculty members often are past students and others with their own
vision challenges.

Instructors come from across the country. This year’s staff included
Beverly Tully from Louisiana, who taught Braille, and her husband,
George, who coordinated the mobility instructors. Both have experience
teaching blind students in their home state.

Other staffers and volunteers came from Arizona, Utah, Idaho,
Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.

Stevens said finding orientation and mobility instructors is one of
the big challenges because it’s such a specialized field.

“They’re always special people,” she said.

*****

Costs are a concern for the program’s future, Stevens noted.

From the early years, calendars and student creations were sold and
the money invested to help pay for the program. But the stock market
tumble ate into the investments set aside to fund the classes, and the
program is now using principal as well as interest to survive.

“Our computers are old” and were used when the program acquired them,
Stevens said.

Students need to be transported to sites for orientation and mobility
and more because they don’t drive. And, Stevens said, the program
could use a van.

“We’d take anything” – a loaner for a month or even a donated vehicle,
she said.

This year, her brother Ken Ulmer came from Nebraska as a volunteer to
help transport students, and others, including Greany’s husband,
helped out.

The program could use new Braille machines and other equipment,
including adaptive kitchen equipment, writing templates for the blind
and games. Its sewing machines are used, and the materials for sewing
classes, as well as yarn for craft work, are donated.

This year’s program included sales of quilts by current and former
students, a raffle and auction to help raise money. And calendar sales
are planned this fall.

Billings Gazette features editor Chris Rubich participated in the
recent Summer Orientation Program in Helena. She can be reached at
(406) 657-1301 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (406)
657-1301 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or at
cru...@billingsgazette.com.

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To get involved

The Summer Orientation Program is sponsored by the nonprofit Montana
Association for the Blind, which funds the program through donations
and fundraisers.

Donations may be made to the MAB and designated for the Summer
Orientation Program, or the money will go to the group’s general fund.
The public also can help by sponsoring a student’s attendance.

And Montana Association for the Blind is a member of Montana Shares.

MAB’s president is Dan Burke of Missoula.

The state office is at P.O. Box 465, Helena, MT 59624 or call (406)
442-9411 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (406)
442-9411 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Eleven chapters are active in the state, in Anaconda, Billings,
Bozeman, Butte, Helena, Great Falls, Havre, Kalispell, Polson,
Missoula and Lewistown.

This year’s annual state convention will be Sept. 17-19 at the
Billings Hotel & Convention Center.

* Referrals for the SOP often come from state Blind and Low Vision
Services regional offices. The regional offices are in Billings at
(406)
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