Changes in Services for the Blind in Mobile

Whil Brail Local officials with the Mobile Association for the Blind are putting more money into programs designed to get the blind into the workforce. This means WHIL’s Radio Reading Service will no longer get state funding.

by Chad Petri

Published: Fri, December 28, 2007 - 4:47 am CST Last Updated: Fri, December 28, 2007 - 9:37 am CST

In a small class at the Mobile Association for the Blind is learning different life skills. If you don’t use braille often, you could slowly lose the ability.

”This class is helping me restore that and learn new skills,” says student Rita Vinson. The Mobile Association for the Blind is putting an additional $22,000 dollars into programs that help the blind enter the workforce. Officials says this is their primary mission.

“To help blind people acquire skills necessary to enter employment,” says Supervisor of Deaf and Blind services Manny Russo. “We take blind people actually take people out with a job placement specialist that is employed here at the Mobile Association of the Blind.” The additional funds come out of WHIL’s Radio Reading Service for the Blind. The program uses special radios to bring the printed word to blind listeners. Russo says state funding for the radio service was always intended to be temporary.

“The radio reading service is a program that we provided some seed money to, help them get started,” says Russo. “We now feel the money should go directly to our mission which is to help blind people go to work.” Now the reading service needs to raise its own money through grants and other organizations that help the blind. The service’s annual budget is $45,000.

“We know that for individuals $45,000 is a lot of money,” says reading service director Brad Martin. “But we also know that as a group as a community we can raise $45,000.” Martin says he’s confident the reading service will survive. The service has state funding through March and Martin says they have most of the money they need to finish this fiscal year.

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