National White Cane Week is from February 5th to 11th.
For the 100 Mile House and District Blind and Visually Impaired White Cane Club, they will also be celebrating 32 years of serving the community.
Director of Public Relations, Lori Fry said that’s due to the work of their tremendous volunteers and the community as a whole.
“The entire Cariboo has supported this group for many, many years so we have been able to give back. We are most proud to look after our youth. There have been a few visually impaired children going through the school system here and over the years we have been able to assist financially to send 4 to a Space Camp for the blind down in Huntsville Alabama.”
Fry added that they were also able to give out a few supporting scholarships.
“We don’t have a scholarship program perse but where it’s fitting we were able to assist our youth. One individual was really involved with the Girl Guides and we were able to assist financially with that visually impaired student, another one graduated last year and was able to give them an honorarium,” Fry said.
Fry noted that when they talk about visual impairment most of the time that’s referring to “Legally Blind” which is ten percent of full sight but there are many, many, people that are not within that category that still experience vision loss and we’re to help anybody in any way.
“Whether that’s providing magnifiers, sometimes it’s just information and through that information pointing them in a direction to get resources from another organization. We have an eye care subsidy program and we have an assistive devices program,” Fry added.
The 100 Mile House and District Blind and Visually Impaired White Cane Club, a local Chapter of the Canadian Council of the Blind have served the Cariboo since 1991.
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