Lacking sight, but not spirit
Maybe I’m a pushover, but twice now I’ve been to the Junior Blind of America center in Windsor Hills near the Crenshaw district, and each time I’ve come away humbled and inspired.
The first visit was a year ago, when I traveled there by bus from Santa Fe Springs with Army Sgt. Maj. Jesse Acosta and his guide dog, Charley. Acosta had lost his sight and nearly his life in a mortar attack in Iraq, and he was taking computer courses at Junior Blind, fiercely determined to rebuild his career and not be a burden to his wife and four children.
Last week, I had two good reasons to check back in on Acosta. Tuesday is Veterans Day, and today marks the first in a series of holiday season features in the L.A. Times highlighting the work of local nonprofits that can use your help, especially given the national economic calamity and the squeeze on government funding and private donations.
From now through early January, in The Times’ annual Holiday Campaign tradition, we’ll bring you stories about children, teens, adults and seniors whose lives are enriched by dedicated employees and volunteers, as well as by those who know the humility and grace in giving. Alongside this column you’ll find details on how you can make a difference.
Junior Blind of America, started in 1953 by a few volunteers, now serves several thousand people a year, more than 90% of them children. Many were born prematurely and blind, and quite a few have other disabilities such as autism.
In a stroll through the campus, you come upon one unforgettable scene after another. Your heart breaks, and just as quickly, your spirit lifts.
An 11-year-old named Josh, wearing a helmet with a cage mask for protection, was walking with his father through the dorm where the boy lives.
“One eye was out of service,” said his dad, Dave Crawford, explaining that his son was born with only partial vision. Out of frustration and because of developmental disabilities, Josh had later badly damaged his good eye by striking himself repeatedly.
But after two years of therapy at Junior Blind, he’s doing better.
“He’s capable of feeding himself now,” his father said. “This place is amazing.”
In addition to the residential program Josh is enrolled in, and a camp in Malibu, Junior Blind runs a special education school and provides vision screening for thousands of children in the greater Los Angeles area. An after-school enrichment program for low-income families, funded in part last year by donations from Times readers, integrates blind and sighted children in sports, cooking and educational activities.
If the place is amazing, as Crawford described it, that’s because of the spirit of the employees as well as the clients. Shirley Manning, for instance, was a client as a child and returned roughly 40 years later as an employee.
Blind at birth, Manning attended Junior Blind’s Malibu camp as a 9-year-old, and while other blind children took to ocean kayaking, snow- and water-skiing and white water rafting, Manning found horseback riding exhilarating.
“I can’t drive a car,” said Manning, whose guitar was near her desk, “but there are very few things blind people can’t do.”
Manning, now in her 50s, runs a residential program that teaches independence and job skills to adults, and eight of her 12 instructors are blind. She is married to a man who lost his sight at 23 when he was wounded by a gunshot. He’s now a playwright and actor.
Just down the hall from Manning’s office, I met Dolores Caldwell, the kind of person who makes you want to ask forgiveness for being so inadequate. Five days a week, from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., she volunteers as a teacher’s aide in a class for blind and disabled students between the ages of 16 and 22. As a member of Junior Blind’s foster grandparent program, she teaches Braille, money management and other skills.
Caldwell, by the way, is 74.
“I’m not a person who sits at home and watches stories on television,” said Caldwell, a retired special ed teacher who knew she wasn’t cut out for a retirement of bingo tournaments and cruise ship shuffleboard.
After class, she goes home to her husband and they discuss her day. He gets on the Internet and researches the issues she brings up, and together they work out strategies for helping her most challenging students.
“It keeps my mind going,” Caldwell said. “If I have a child who can accomplish something in the end, at 22, I feel like I’ve really done something. I love this.”
In an upstairs computer training room, Sgt. Maj. Acosta was where I last saw him a year ago, his dog Charley at his feet. He had the same proud bearing and wore a shirt that said, “If you love your freedom, thank a vet.”
Acosta, 51, has been learning everything from life skills to spreadsheet programs as he trains to return to his career at the Southern California Gas Co., where he will be a data analyst. But his progress has been interrupted in the last year by six surgeries to rebuild his palate and facial bones damaged in the mortar attack, and he has more surgery scheduled early next year.
“They’re about through piecing me back together,” joked Acosta, who also suffered traumatic brain injury.
Acosta has traveled the country as a motivational speaker, particularly for wounded returning vets, and although he’s G.I. Joe all the way, he’s a harsh critic of the healthcare that awaits soldiers upon their return home.
“Did the V.A. have anybody to facilitate my getting back into the work force? The answer is no,” said Acosta, who added that he fought the bureaucracy to get his placement at Junior Blind, and he encourages other injured vets to fight just as hard for proper care.
When I asked his instructor, Louie Herrera, how Acosta is doing, he smiled.
“He’s doing fantastic,” said Herrera, who has been blind since he was 3 1/2 .
Acosta also speaks to new residents at Junior Blind, many of whom are newly disabled. I asked what he tells them.
“Don’t let this hamper your goals,” he said, telling me he finds it disturbing that 70% of blind people are unemployed.
“Blindness is no excuse not to be employed. I’m not going to let those yo-yos across the water take the best out of me. I am not finished.
“I am not finished.”
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