3 blind podcasters

Philip
I was born and raised in south Texas and except for 3 years living in New Mexico, I have lived here all my life.
I was adopted and raised by my adoptive mother, who was a single parent to me and my two sisters.
 
I had a 17-year career in law enforcement where I worked my way up to a Patrol Sergeant position.
In 1997, I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, which eventually resulted in night blindness and loss of peripheral vision.
Eventually, I was forced to retire in 2005.
 
My disability resulted in a broken marriage, loss of career and a huge financial blow. I raised my two kids on my own which I will never regret.
 
I experienced some of the same emotions that others in my situation experienced when they began experiencing vision loss.
I decided to get ahead of the game and learn about available resources or the blind and never looked back.
 
Mary
Mary was born in Dallas and at age 8, began living in south Texas.
 
Mary is widowed and has a 27-year old daughter who is studying in Washington.
 
Mary lost her vision in 2015 as the result of an allergic reaction to medication.
Unfortunately, nog long after she began experiencing vision loss, she lost her husband due to complications from diabetes.
 
Mary’s vision loss resulted her being forced to retire from a 20-year nursing career.
 
How We Met
We were both attending the same church. One day, I heard someone asking for prayer for a member of the church who had recently experienced vision loss. I immediately wanted to help her and after three weeks we were able to connect.
Mary had much difficulty in adjusting to her vision loss and rarely was able to have independence. This gave me the opportunity to talk to her about the available resources.
Today, Mary is very independent both at home and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center school for the blind in Austin and she is the complete opposite of who she used to be.
 
As a result, we have set off on some endeavours dedicated to making life a little easier by providing information on available resources for the visually-impaired.
 
We run a local group called The Rio Grande Valley Coalition of the Blind, which is designed to bring awareness to the need of accessibility for the local visually-impaired community.
 
Together with other volunteers, We work on our non-profit charity, The White Cane Project, which works to provide free navigation canes to those who are unable to afford them.
This came as a result of having a conversation with a friend who told us that there is a school for the blind in Mexico, which is not government-funded, that has students use makeshift canes to help them navigate. They either use tree limbs or glue cans or bottles end-to-end.
We were immediately driven to change that and to date, have provided almost 100 canes to that particular scool. That has driven to make The White Cane Project an international charity and are working to connect with non-government funded organizations to provide canes for their clients.
 
We also host the livestream The Two Blind Mice Show, which works to bring blindness awareness at a local and international level. We often invite technology developers or organization leaders to discuss available resources or projects for the visually-impaired.
 
We recently began a new project, which we are calling Blind-Sighted Adventure Camp.
This came about after learning that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department had begun initiative to make all state parks accessible to anyone with a disability.
The goal of the project is to invite visually-impaired persons to a week of camping. This also includes sighted volunteers who will help as sighted guides.
The goal is to have it fully funded by sponsors so that it can be at no cost to the sighted and non-sighted attendees.
If successful, we hope to make it an annual event and possibly expand it nationally.
 
One of our most monumental goals is trying to create a school for the blind in our area.
The reason being that the nearest school for the blind is 5 hours away.
Additionally, it is our hope that this will also bring awareness to the sighted community where we live so that the stigma of how to interact with the visually-impaired resultsi in a positive outcomes.
 
We both know that the both of us have been given a servant’s heart and with our projects and our proud membership as Lions Club members, we plan to continue serving our community for a long time.

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Aaron's Opinion