Foundation Challenges the Blind to Tackle the Extreme

When Norman Kaplan started the Foundation for the Junior Blind in 1953, having limited sight meant a limited life.

Now it means dog-sledding in Minnesota and sea kayaking in Mexico.

For half a century, the foundation has not been content with ushering the blind and visually impaired into the mainstream; it has occasionally pushed them into the extreme.

Clients, most of them young, have gone rock climbing in Yosemite, hiking at the Grand Canyon, flying in a hot-air balloon, skiing, and rafting in white water.

Jesus Vaca, 20, said his parents “would have freaked” if they saw him leading a dog team across a frozen lake two years ago in Minnesota.

Partially blind from birth, the Glendale Community College student from Sun Valley has always been protected by his family, but has always wanted to push the envelope.

“That trip for me was a challenge,” he said. “But that’s why I went. I like a challenge.”

Perched on a verdant, eight-acre green in Windsor Hills, a community between Inglewood and the Crenshaw district, the foundation serves about 6,000 people a year in six programs. Its clients range from infants and toddlers to adults who have recently lost their sight.

State funding helps with the more intense rehabilitation and education programs, but accounts for only about half the organization’s annual $9-million budget, said Jay Allen, chief operating officer.

But the foundation’s Camp Bloomfield summer camp in Malibu and Visions: Adventures in Learning, which organizes trips like dog-sledding, rely almost entirely on the public’s generosity, Allen said.

“We’re heavily dependent on donations,” Allen said. “Probably the highest percentage comes from individuals in the community.”

This year, the foundation received a $15,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, which raises money for nonprofits in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

From the wide corridors and lack of obstacles to the tactile art on the walls, the foundation’s campus is tailored for every degree of vision impairment. A playground designed by Mattel Corp. features a rock wall with handholds that play music when touched.

In a computer laboratory, clients listen to Web pages read by a text translator program, or use scanners to enlarge documents for easier reading.

Debra Jackson, 50, legally blind for nearly 20 years, used the programs to type out a biographical summary for a job-seeking program. She is one of 34 adults stricken with vision problems late in life who live for up to nine months in dormitories on the campus. Another dormitory houses youths with multiple disabilities.

“You feel better about yourself when you’re around others who are like you,” Jackson said. “And that has made a big difference, because you have more confidence in yourself. No matter how great your friends or family are, how much they love you, you still feel below them.”

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