Trying Times : Center for Visually Impaired Faces Closure

The art students at the Valley Center for the Visually Handicapped laughed when they were told what color 76-year-old Velma Clark was painting her ceramic cat. “Whoever heard of a blue cat?” kidded her friend Connie Goldberg, 86.

“Actually,” Clark confided, “it’s the fourth one I’ve made. I hate cats. But I do like this class.”

She is not alone in her sentiments. When the students learned several weeks ago that their art class was to be eliminated, the students, who are mostly elderly, managed to collect $200 to keep teacher Karen Robbins. But Robbins turned down the payment, used the money to buy supplies and volunteered her teaching time.

The Los Angeles Unified School District had financed the visiting arts program, but had to cancel it because of budget cuts.

The incident is only one of a number of recent crises to hit the financially strapped center. Hit hard by decreases in corporate giving and government support, officials said the only school for visually impaired adults in the San Fernando Valley is now threatened with closure after 18 years.

Located in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, the nonprofit center is one of only three in the Los Angeles area that exclusively serve the visually impaired. But with dwindling funding sources, the nonprofit organization has been forced to “live month to month,” said Linda Williams, who took over as center director in January. The center provides door-to-door shuttle service for 155 students who have no other means of transportation and offers a variety of classes and counseling services.

The center operates on a $280,000 budget, but last year used $78,000, most of its emergency funds, to meet costs. Finances worsened this year when auto insurance rates increased and eight aging shuttle vans fell into disrepair, Williams said.

There is a waiting list of 60 students, and larger facilities are needed to provide services to more of the Valley’s estimated 15,000 visually impaired adults.

The school not only offers instruction in art and current events but also serves as a support center.

“We need each other’s company,” said 80-year-old Olga Klinger, who lost most of her sight eight years ago. “I was stuck at home. It was bad.” She attended classes and then began volunteering as a Spanish and typing teacher. “It changed my life,” she said.

The center was founded by Sophia Myers, a blind Van Nuys businesswoman who could not find transportation to a school for the blind in downtown Los Angeles. So she decided to start one in the Valley.

Myers, who recently retired at age 91, started the school with two volunteers and three students in a rented room. Through the years, the center has moved several times and operated on a modest budget. But as Myers’ health failed, she was unable to promote the center and raise money.

In January, Retinitis Pigmentosa International, a Woodland Hills-based nonprofit agency that raises funds for eye disease research and other programs, took over the center. The group is planning a fund-raising dinner June 29 at the Beverly Hilton hotel. It will honor television shows that positively portray blind people. Some proceeds will be used for the center, said Helen Harris, the group’s president. The group will also meet later this month with Councilwoman Joy Picus to organize a steering committee to assist the center.

Meanwhile, the students are mobilized to raise funds.

Arnie Jacobson, 67, said he would like to organize phone solicitations.

Jacobson, who owned the Dish Factory in downtown Los Angeles, retired last year when he lost his sight. He calls himself the center’s “chief moocher,” explaining how he recently talked a Michigan company into donating serving trays, which he later sold for $150. He gave the money to the center.