Press Kit

50 unsung New York heroes - NY Daily News (11/23/06)

Nonprofits Seem a Natural Fit for Office Condos - NY Times (11/1/06)

Intergenerational Program Profiles - NYSIgN• E• W• S (Fall 2006)

Vacation Camp for the Blind reaches milestone - Journal News (8/8/06)

Free Services for the Blind Offer Brooklynites New Shot at Independence - Courier-Life (8/8/06)

Group To Help Blind Will Celebrate 80th Birthday Here - Daily Eagle (5/06)

A respite for campers, families in Spring Valley - Journal News (9/10/05)

A NATION CHALLENGED: DISLOCATION; Learning to Navigate Where the Invisible Clues Have Changed - NY Times (2/21/02)

 

50 unsung New York heroes

Reported by Belisa Vranich, Jane Ridley, Christopher Cullen, Halley Bondy, Julian Kesner, Nicole Lyn Pesce, David Hinckley and Robert Dominguez.
Originally published on November 23, 2006, in the New York Daily News

The queen of green
As program director for the Green Guerillas, a group dedicated to helping people cultivate New York's gardens, Hannah Riseley-White is a leading advocate in the movement to form garden groups and coalitions. She dedicates her life to providing resources to maintain the city's damaged green spaces. Riseley-White works with the Little Sisters of Assumption, a nonprofit organization that helps East Harlem families address the physical, emotional, educational and spiritual dimensions of family health. She also leads a group of 12 immigrant women who garden with their children. At Pleasant Park Garden in East Harlem, Riseley-White and her group grow organic food to help feed impoverished families around the area. They give away 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of food every year. "There's no better feeling than waking up in the morning to do what you love to do every single day," she says.

The art of healing Dr. Mitchell Kahn, director of the Kathryn & Gilbert Miller Institute for Performing Artists, will retire this fall after 26 years of practice. A board-certified internist with many years of experience in providing affordable primary treatment for performing artists who otherwise might not receive care, he is also medical director for the Metropolitan Opera. Kahn, who completed his training at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1975, has been associated with many performing arts organizations, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His own experience in the arts includes performing at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall on the French horn and violin, producing plays and building sets and costumes. Known for a gentle bedside manner and warm and fatherly style of family practice, he will be sorely missed.

Self-help motivator
Upper West Side mental health professional Nell Hanks has always tried to help others. "I don't want to be a waste of space," she says. "I would like to leave this world a little better than when I found it." After earning a master's in counseling psychology from NYU, Hanks combined therapy with her love of physical activity to found Running Your Life: Skills for Positive Change. The program, tied to the Achilles Track Club, motivates people struggling over such hurdles as drug dependency and living with diabetes by getting them back on their feet.

"I use running as a metaphor," she says. "Whether you're walking a mile or running a marathon, you use the same concept to reach this goal." Hanks and her husband, Simon Gisby, have followed this mantra with the recent arrival of their twin sons, Jason and Luke, born prematurely. "In my program I talk about the importance of one step at a time," she says. "Now [the twins] have taught me the importance of one breath at a time. But they're little fighters, and they're heading in the right direction."

A singular name in care
Dhanpat, the one-name man known as Dan, has received more than 500 thank-you letters from Lutheran Medical Center patients in the last decade, and is recognized everywhere he goes in his Bay Ridge neighborhood. The patient-care technician at the Brooklyn center says, "When somebody tells me I am their 'guiding light' or 'knight in shining armor,' it makes me feel so good." The 62-year-old arrived here from British Guyana in 1984, was laid off as a World Trade Center security guard in 1996 and began volunteering at Lutheran. Managers quickly saw Dhanpat's amazing bedside manner and hired him full time. Last year his dedication and compassion earned him the hospital's Presidential Award. He met his second wife, Carol Ann, while caring for her ailing mother, earning high praise and an introduction from her father. Says his wife: "He treated my mother like an angel. If I hadn't married him, there's many others who would have!"

Serving the community
Most seniors would like their meals prepared for them. But not Kerry Lewis, 78, and Phoebe Davis, 80, volunteer chefs and coordinators of a weekly soup kitchen at the First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church at 54 MacDonough St. in Brooklyn. Together with a small volunteer staff, Lewis and Davis prepare and serve meals for more than 100 people from the Bed-Stuy area on Wednesdays.

These ceaseless altruists don't just ladle soup into bowls. On any given week they might be basting chicken or turkey wings, boiling heaps of spaghetti or rinsing cabbages until it's certain that everyone will get a share.

They have worked side by side for 13 years and have no desire to hog the limelight. "I will only take credit for the kitchen if Phoebe and I take it together," insists Lewis.

Cultural savior
It's tragic but true that most of the history of show business in New York is carried in the minds of people who lived it — and far too often they take it with them.

The loss is particularly acute in the case of black show business, which in many ways created the template for everyone, but never gets anything close to the credit or respect it deserves.

That's why Delilah Jackson, who grew up in Harlem a block from the Apollo Theater and was a dancer in her youth, created the Black Patti Foundation — to collect and preserve the memorabilia and the stories of the singers, actors, chorus girls, dancers and all the others who created the golden age of live stage shows in New York.

Jackson says she set out to find these performers, document their stories and keep both their work and memory alive.

Along the way, she has made a lot of friends and saved one of the most important cultural legacies of the 20th century.

The blind helping the blind
Whenever tenants of his W. 23rd St. building need anything repaired — an air conditioner, a door lock, even a wheelchair — they usually turn to resident "electronics whiz" Doug Herrington, 54. While being a good handyman has made him popular with neighbors, Herrington's skills are particularly remarkable considering that he has been blind since birth. "Everyone in the building I live in is blind, too," Herrington says. "It makes me glad to be able to help them out when I can." Being a good neighbor doesn't end with being Mr. Fix-it. Herrington also volunteers at Visions, a Manhattan-based organization that provides services for the blind and the visually impaired. As an engineer at Visions' in-house radio station, Herrington and program director Pamela Dominguez, who is also blind, teach other sightless people how to work the equipment used to produce the station's daily block of music and talk shows.

Dignity in death
When Tim Jaccard, a medic with the Nassau County Police Department, was summoned to a public rest room where a 6 pound 3 ounce infant had been drowned in the toilet, he found his calling. Shocked by the number of newborns left to die every year in the U.S., the grandfather of five established his charitable foundation, AMT Children of Hope.

The organization bought a plot at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury where more than 80 babies have received proper burials and the dignity in death they were denied in life. "On their gravestones, the children always take the first name of the person who found them and the last name of Hope," says Jaccard. "They are part of a family."

Meanwhile, he has tirelessly campaigned for the successful introduction of Safe Haven laws, which allow troubled mothers to "drop off" unwanted newborns at hospitals and fire stations without fear of prosecution.

Since such a law was enacted in New York State in July 2000, a total 242 babies have been safely handed over to the authorities. Nationally, the figure is 1,111. For more information, go to amtchildrenofhope.com.

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Nonprofits Seem a Natural Fit for Office Condos

By ALISON GREGOR
Published: November 1, 2006

The office condominium of Visions/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a nonprofit organization in SoHo, is not a typical Manhattan workplace.

Stone inlays in the hardwood floors serve as directional cues for those with canes. Diffuse lighting panels cut glare, enabling visually impaired visitors to see contrasting walls and furnishings. Staff members use an expansive kitchen with a washer-dryer to coach clients in life skills.

Because Visions owns its 8,000-square-foot space in a former industrial building at 500 Greenwich Street — rather than leasing it — the organization was able to customize the office with ease. And the benefits of ownership do not stop there.

“Now that we own, we don’t have to worry about being priced out of the market or spending most of our money on offices, as opposed to our program,” said Nancy D. Miller, executive director of Visions.

As the market for office space in New York City tightens and rents climb — while interest rates remain low — office condominiums are promoted as providing financial stability for small companies expecting little employee growth. Given the persistent popularity of residential condominiums, it seems logical that the city might embrace the concept of office-space ownership, which appeared as far back as the early 1980s but has not caught on here as it has in other parts of the country.

There has even been some recent development of office condominiums in prime addresses like the Chelsea Arts Tower at 545 West 25th Street; and at 125 Maiden Lane and 14 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.

Yet, even as brokers say there is obvious demand on the part of nonprofit organizations, government agencies and some small companies to own their spaces, few real estate professionals anticipate a boom in office condominiums in the city anytime soon.

“In recent years, some owners have agreed to convert part or all of their buildings to commercial condominium space” on the premise that the parts are worth more than the whole, said David Lebenstein, director of the nonprofit division at the commercial brokerage firm Colliers ABR. But, he conceded, “it is still — no matter how you slice it — a very limited market.”

The Chelsea Arts Tower, a 20-story commercial condominium recently built in West Chelsea with floor sizes of 3,100 to 4,700 square feet, has attracted galleries and arts-related businesses, with units selling for about $800 a foot, said Alan Weisman, a senior managing director at Grubb & Ellis.

Mr. Weisman said the success of the tower, which was developed as a result of numerous requests from art galleries in the neighborhood for condominiums, is not a bellwether. “This is unique,” he said. “It was a clever thing to do for where we were on that site in that neighborhood for that type of user. I wouldn’t call it a trend.”

Also, in its design and appeal, the Chelsea Arts Tower is actually closer to retail space than office space, Mr. Weisman said.

The office condominiums created through renovations at 125 Maiden Lane and 14 Wall Street in the financial district have also attracted attention for their prime locations and sizes. Both have floor areas at the high end of the range typical in office condominiums in the city, which are about 5,000 to 25,000 square feet.

The owners of both buildings said they hoped to appeal to nonprofit organizations and government agencies. The Empire State Development Corporation, a state authority, plans to move into 125 Maiden Lane.

Spaces in the 350,000-square-foot Maiden Lane building, where current tenants have been offered the option to buy, range in price from $350 to $425 a foot, said Francis Greenburger, chairman of Time Equities.

Office condominiums in the lower floors of 14 Wall Street, which will be listed for $400 to $425 a foot, are not yet on the market. The developer, Leviev Boymelgreen, hopes to attract nonprofit organizations seeking security or companies that do not have the wherewithal to purchase a whole building, said Edan Shiboleth, director of the developer’s finance and investment group.
The company will also be marketing office condominium space at the base of 15 Broad Street, in the financial district.

Typically, small companies, perhaps doctor’s offices, accountants or architects, foreseeing little or no employee growth and trying to stabilize expenses might be candidates for office condominiums. But the biggest demand comes from nonprofit organizations, especially in New York City, which has more than 25,000 of them.

Nonprofits are exempt from city real estate taxes when they own, which can save $5 to $10 a square foot, said Mr. Lebenstein of Colliers ABR. Owning a space also provides continuity for nonprofits, which can be subject to income fluctuations and are often in danger of being priced out of rental buildings.

But office condominiums at prices around $400 a foot are out of the range of most nonprofits, said Suzanne Sunshine Mendel, vice president and head of the New York tristate region nonprofit practice group at CB Richard Ellis.

“If there was a product for $250 or $300 a foot, nonprofits could afford it,” she said. “But if you calculate a lease versus a buy, when you start getting up near $400 or $500 a foot, it’s not worth it for a nonprofit to buy if they can sign a lease in the high $20s or low $30s a foot.”

Several office condominiums being developed in Harlem may provide an alternative. They are an outgrowth of zoning that provides development bonuses when space is created for nonprofit or medical uses.

For instance, half the 60,000 square feet of commercial space at 345 East 102nd Street has been leased to government, social service or health programs, and now, the developer, Glenwood Management, would like to sell the balance, for around $350 a square foot.

“It’s advantageous to do a commercial condominium when you’re dealing with not-for-profits,” said Gary Jacob, executive vice president at Glenwood. “That’s why we’re selling the space.”

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INTERGENERATIONAL PROGRAM PROFILES
VISIONS Volunteer Program - A Beacon of Light for Visually Impaired
NYSIgN• E• W• S Fall 2006

“I live in darkness – the volunteers are opening doors for me. When they understand my problems, they relate tome more. They are very patient. They realize the importance of their work.”
- Eugene, Client of VISIONS, Age 68

Trusting someone to see for you isn’t an easy task. VISIONS’ Intergenerational Volunteer Program, started in 1987 and funded by the New York City Department for the Aging, is a free service for seniors who are blind and visually impaired. Volunteers perform various tasks for the seniors that include: reading mail, escorting seniors on walks or to appointments, computer troubleshooting, shopping help, household organizing, and friendly visits.

Though these tasks may seem relatively minor, it is amazing how the volunteer program provides a sense of stability and security for the seniors, some of whom have just recently lost their vision. As volunteer Carolina, age 18, said after her visit, “It was hard to say goodbye because in my mind, I wonder if his bills are read or if his computer is fixed or if someone talks to him about his day.” In order to help the seniors, each semester sixteen to eighteen high school students, ages 14 to18, are carefully chosen through an application and interview process. There is an initial one-week training period where VISIONS’ professional staff (mobility instructors and rehabilitation specialists) provide instruction to the volunteers. They review emergency situations, sighted guide technique, and ways to assist seniors who use walkers, wheelchairs and other mobility devices, such as the prescribed mobility cane used by people who are blind. The volunteers get a chance to learn about the visual impairments some of the seniors face, using special goggles that simulate eye conditions such as macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, etc.

The students are also taught tolerance and acceptance of age and ethnic differences. Additionally, the volunteers are taught to use the equipment specially adapted for the blind or visually impaired. For example, the “say-when” that plays a noise or song for a person to stop pouring a liquid when it reaches an appropriate level. Although the training period is packed with new information about vision related services, it is also used to educate the volunteers about seniors in general. Volunteer Molly, age 17, summed it up well when she said, “This job is so much more tome than something to put on my résumé or just another job. It is something that I came into with an open mind and left with much more than I began with.”

VISIONS works with seniors in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. To join the program, the Intergenerational Volunteer Program Coordinator, Elizabeth Lee, completes a home visit and intake form. She is able to match personalities and interests of the seniors to those of the volunteers, so that the volunteer program can be a learning experience for both parties. For example, after volunteer Aysha, age17, interested in astrology, met with client James, age 64, she exclaimed, “According to our name and number, James was able to tell us our careers and what a certain person in a certain sign usually liked to do!” Aysha began to read her horoscope every day, thanks to James, an astrologist expert who could share his interest with the volunteer. In addition, the volunteers are able to be more aware of the needs of seniors and the effects of vision loss, learn about careers in vision rehabilitation and human services, and put free time after school or during the summer to good use. Meanwhile, the seniors are able to use resources in their community, decrease loneliness and isolation, and impart advice based on their life experiences to the young volunteers. Overall, it is a great way to build understanding and encourage intergenerational and multi-cultural ties. In addition to the volunteer visitations, VISIONS sponsors Senior Speak Out at VISIONS’ community center at Selis Manor in Manhattan. This support group program meets every Monday afternoon and offers a free hot meal and speakers discussing topics such as Medicare, alternative medicine, social security benefits, etc. 130 seniors are enrolled in Senior Speak Out, and this popular class offers socialization opportunities as well as educational and nutritional benefits. The volunteers escort seniors and bring meals to the tables. They offer the opportunity for seniors to socialize with seniors in an environment outside of their homes. Senior Speak Out has proven to be a necessary part of VISIONS’ Senior Programs because as client Alba, age 88, says, “I can’t wait for Speak Out every Monday. It’s about the only time I get out of this house and see my friends from across town.”

VISIONS’ Intergenerational Volunteer Program is a necessary and valuable experience for both the volunteers and seniors. When client Michael, age 70, spoke about the volunteers, he said, “My house feels like a prison for me and so it was great to escape and walk around the neighborhood. I can’t say enough about them.” Students gain valuable volunteer experience and sensitivity to working with seniors who experience vision loss and other disabilities. Seniors who may be fearful to leave their homes are provided companionship and are encouraged to be independent despite their vision loss. Client Teena, age 80, said, “They have seen me through the storm. I could have never managed without them.”

For more information regarding VISIONS Intergenerational Volunteer Program, please contact Elizabeth Lee, Intergenerational Volunteer Coordinator, VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired at 212-625-1616, ext.108 or via e-mail at @visionsvcb.org or click on www.visionsvcb.org for more information.

By Sucheta Mukherjee, Intergenerational Volunteer Program Intern & Elizabeth Lee, Intergenerational Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator.

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Vacation Camp for the Blind reaches milestone

8/8/2006
From: The Journal News (NY)
By: ALYSSA SUNKIN
Submitted by BlindNews Mailing List

SPRING VALLEY — For most of the summer, Rini Carroll has been a counselor for the Vacation Camp for the Blind, but not yesterday. Yesterday Carroll, 19, of Suffern, was a fortuneteller dressed in a vibrant gold, beaded Cinderella dress, entertaining the donors, volunteers and friends of Vacation Camp for the Blind who came to the camp for its annual Family Day and to celebrate its 80th anniversary. Carroll, who has been visually impaired since birth, embraces her disability and uses it to joke around and get some laughs. Yesterday she imagined her cane as a sword and challenged a fellow counselor to a duel.

"People think that blindness breaks you, but I've seen people make it here," she said. "People don't give us enough credit." Vacation Camp for the Blind, a 35-acre camp at 111 Summit Park Road in Spring Valley, offered tours, swimming in the camp's custom pool, a picnic lunch, a carnival and music to all those who attended.

"It's amazing for a nonprofit agency to reach this milestone," said Nancy Miller, executive director and chief executive officer of VISIONS Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a nonprofit that provides education, rehabilitation and social activities for blind New Yorkers and runs the camp. Miller first became involved at the camp in 1971 when she was a counselor. The camp receives much of its funding from local Lions Clubs, the New York State Commission for the Blind and the Office of Mental Retardation.

"People have found this experience so meaningful to them," she said. "We've had people coming to this camp for 50 years, and we celebrate their anniversary as well as the camp's anniversary. It says something about how our campers value our programs here, that they come back year after year."

Incorporated in 1926, the vacation camp was begun in Rye by six women to cater to the blind and visually impaired, a group whose needs, they believed, were overlooked. It provided specially designed accommodations and services. At first the camp was in session only in the summer. Then, in 1951, the camp moved to Spring Valley and started offering vacations year-round for visually impaired single adults, couples and families with children.

The tradition of service has carried over through the years; this year the camp has served more than 650 people.

"VCB is really a place where people become family. It's a place with values, supports, and opportunities, and that's true of our campers as well as the staff that works here," Miller said. "Many of the staff started here as counselors in college and have decided to dedicate their lives to serving the disabled."

Victor Andrews, 19, of Brooklyn, who started at the camp three years ago as a camper and is now a counselor, also believes that the camp fosters a familial bond. Moreover, he sees his involvement as being long-term.

"I'll be here until the day that I'm ... not here," he said with a chuckle. George Wiedmiller was a member of the Spring Valley Lions Club in 1951 when the camp opened on this side of the Hudson. Yesterday he was present when the club received the John Twohie Volunteer of the Year Award for all of its years of service for the camp. He said his one wish for the future is that the camp continue to grow.

That is the official goal for the camp and VISIONS. They aspire to expand their services to the community, specifically for the growing blind and visually impaired population in the young and the old, officials said.

Carroll, like many, finds the camp to be a nurturing environment. "It's great to be around people that can't see," she said, "— people like us."

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Free Services for the Blind Offer Brooklynites New Shot at Independence

By Emily Keller
Courier-Life Publications
08/08/2006

Photo to the left is of Mary Conner and her daughter, Meleesha Conner-Evans.

For its 80th birthday, VISIONS/ Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired is giving Brooklynites, who account for 30% of its clients, a present.

The non-profit is embarking on a campaign to reach more of them, as well as people with severe visual impairment across the five boroughs.

“We offer a tremendous amount of free services to Brooklyn [residents],” said Nancy Miller, Executive Director of VISIONS. “We cover the entire borough...every neighborhood in Brooklyn.”

Miller, who lived for decades in Marine Park, Kings Highway, and Cobble Hill, said the services are highly used in Brooklyn because the borough has a high population of elderly people, Latinos and African Americans, who have higher rates of diabetes and glaucoma, which can lead to vision impairment or loss.

The organization’s services, which are all free, include visits to the homes of blind and visually impaired individuals to teach them how to cook safely, handle their checkbooks and navigate, in addition to blindness prevention and vision rehabilitation programs.

VISIONS serves more than 3,000 people of all ages annually with no waiting list, and there is room for more. “So far we haven’t hit our capacity. We haven’t had to turn people away,” said Miller. Services are available in English, Spanish and sometimes Cantonese.

In order to qualify for services, one must have 20/200 acuity with correction or a visual field of 20 degrees or less.

VISIONS also offers employment services – both in looking for work, and in making one’s job accessible once it is acquired – and its staff members visit senior centers and health fairs to give presentations about vision services and methods for living an active and independent life. They also train staff members at senior centers.

“In Brooklyn we’ve been working with senior centers to do training with senior center staffs to make their programs welcoming to blind seniors,” Miller explained.

As part of a Department for the Aging training and outreach program from 2002 to 2006, VISIONS made repeated visits to many Brooklyn senior centers, including Albany Senior Center at 196 Albany Avenue, Christopher C. Blenman Senior Center at 720 East New York Avenue, L. H. Pink Senior Center at 2702 Linden Boulevard, and Penn Wortman Senior Center at 859 Wortman Avenue.

As part of the four-year program, staff members also visited the Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Center at 319 Stanhope Street, Times Plaza Senior Center at 460 Atlantic Avenue, Amico Senior Center at 5901 13th Avenue, Dorchester Senior Center at 1419 Dorchester Road, and Tompkins Park Senior Center at 550 Greene Avenue.

Their tasks included making sure the centers’ front desks were user friendly, changing signage, adding large print lunch menus, and starting music appreciation programs.

But while VISIONS’ services are aplenty, recipients are sometimes hard to find.

According to VISIONS, less than two percent of blind and visually impaired New Yorkers currently access vision rehabilitation services. That is why Miller and others are redoubling their efforts to get the word out.

VISIONS estimates that there are 60,000 blind people and 363,000 people with severe visual impairment in New York City.

Miller, who has worked at VISIONS since 1971 and became Executive Director in 1987, said her career began when she was a student at Cornell University and saw an advertisement for an adult camp. She decided she wanted to participate before she even knew the camp was for adults with visual impairment.

“I really liked the idea of working with adults. From my first summer I was just absolutely committed to this as a career,” she said.

Miller said she often hears the question: ‘isn’t it depressing?’ about her work, to which she says, “I say ‘no, it’s the opposite.’ It’s amazing what [people with visual impairment and blindness] can do. The only thing they can’t do is fly a plane or drive a car.”

VISIONS is funded by City Council and Assembly members, the Department for the Aging, senators, grants, corporate support, and $40,000 annually from the Brooklyn Borough President, which has been coming in for the past 20 years for community outreach.

Outreach efforts involve the VISIONS Brooklyn Advisory Board, which is made up of local business representatives, blind consumers, staff members of organizations that serve seniors, local ophthalmologists, and public relations personnel.

To learn more about VISIONS’ services by phone or through a new DVD, call (212) 625-1616 or visit www.visionsvcb.org. To request a presentation by VISIONS staff members, ask for Rose Gaynus.

Deanna Fiore, 13, of Marine Park, is one of the recently honored participants in the Police Athletic League’s (PAL) Annual Illustrated Poetry Contest held at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium in Manhattan.

Fiore was awarded first place in her age group for her poem and accompanying illustration entitled, “Tree Frog.” Fiore explained why she chose tree frogs as her subject: “I really like tree frogs a lot and I think they’re really cute. They’re unique and really small and pretty.”

The exhibition of poetry and matching artwork was an occasion for New Yorkers, ages six to 18, to celebrate their creative achievements with parents and friends.

The contest’s theme, Accent of Youth, invited young artists and writers to use their imaginations to create their interpretations of the splendors of the world through art and poetry.

From sports to fashion, participants shared visions of their favorite things to do and see.

Fellow Brooklynite, Yekaterina Komarovskaya, 12, illustrated, “The Studio,” portraying “performers with beautiful costumes.” Yekaterina stated that she was inspired by dance performances she had seen in school.

Kitty Kirby, director of the Performing Arts Program at the Police Athletic League, shared her enthusiasm for the contest commenting, “This year’s show is the best ever. Our young people did a great job with the theme Accent of Youth, sharing with us their creativity and intelligence through brilliant artwork and poetry.”

PAL Chairman and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau awarded 11 participants from all age groups with The Honorable Robert M. Morgenthau Award. He said, “The Illustrated Poetry program is quite extraordinary. I want to thank the young people who participated, the parents who encouraged them and the PAL staff who helped them. This is truly a wonderful show.”

Thousands of entries were submitted for PAL’s Illustrated Poetry Contest and reviewed by a panel of distinguished judges. The young artists used oils, acrylics, chalk, pencils, crayons, brushes, computers, and cameras to express their artistic visions. Poems ranged from free verse, limerick, narrative and Haiku to nonsense and ballad.

Each year, a calendar has been produced using the words and images of winners from PAL’s Illustrated Poetry Contest, giving exposure to these outstanding students. This year’s contest also recognized the accomplishments of several top winners with prestigious awards and scholarships presented by the Josephine Lawrence Hopkins Foundation and the Society of Illustrators.

The Police Athletic League, founded in 1914, has been serving New York City’s young people for more than 90 years.

PAL has sponsored the Illustrated Poetry Contest since 1967.

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Group To Help Blind Will Celebrate 80th Birthday Here
This article reprinted courtesy of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ©2006

VISIONS Made Dramatic Impact On One Brooklyn Man’s Life
By Mary Frost

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Mannie Corman, a Brooklyn Heights resident, was at the receiving end of a bad cataract operation four years ago, resulting in blindness in one eye. While he was at the Congregation Mt. Sinai synagogue one Saturday, another congregant, Nancy Miller, noticed he was switching from one pair of glasses to another while trying to pray.

“We got to talking,” Corman said, “and she told me that she noticed I was having trouble with my eyes.” That chance meeting made a remarkable difference in Corman’s life. It turns out that Ms. Miller is the director of VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a not-for-profit social service and vision rehabilitation agency.

The organization’s mission is to help visually impaired people of all ages stay self-confident and self-reliant by teaching skills, supplying social services, providing adapted recreation and, in some cases, supplying equipment such as reading machines.

“They got me a reading machine, they had someone down to see which kind of lights would work better for me in every room, gave me the technical things I needed and made everything easier,” Corman told the Brooklyn Eagle.

Corman was so impressed with VISION’s services he joined the organization’s Brooklyn Advisory Board. “Not enough people take advantage of the services because they don’t know about it,” he said. “We do everything for them — send social workers to the house to help with cooking or whatever they want to do, teach blind people how to use the computer or find employment, provide counseling, run a camp for adults and children — and it’s all free!”

VISIONS’s Vacation Camp for the Blind, located on 35 acres in Rockland County, is one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the United States. Each year, the camp serves nearly 600 people of all ages, who use a unique guide rail system and adapted facilities to participate in a wide variety of camping activities.

VISIONS will celebrate its 80th anniversary at its 16th Annual Luncheon and Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, May 17 from noon to 2 p.m. at Gargiulo’s Restaurant, 2911 West 15th Street in Coney Island. Honorees will be Lois Aronstein, Director of New York State AARP; Luz Burgos, Director of Tompkins Park Senior Center; and J. David Sweeney, President of PDS Development Corp.

The guest speaker for the program will be Edwin Mendez-Santiago, LCSW, Commissioner, NYC Department for the Aging. For more information, call Rose Gaynus, Director of Brooklyn Community Services, 212-625-1616, ext. 109.

Four years after he lost the use of one eye, Corman still uses the reading machine the group gave him. “A lot of people don’t even know there are reading machines,” he said. “VISIONS has made a tremendous difference in my life and in the lives of people I have referred to them.”

All materials posted on brooklyneagle.com are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without written permission, which can be sought by emailing arturc@att.net.

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A respite for campers, families in Spring Valley

By Rachel Breitman
Special to the Journal News
(original publication: September 10, 2005)

In early June, counselors at the Vacation Camp for the Blind took turns being blindfolded and practicing different sports activities.

They bowled using ramped lanes and learned to listen and count the number of pins knocked down. Counselors played T-ball using a soccer ball equipped with a bell and ran around a modified baseball field that only uses first and third base.

Soon their improved sense of smell, hearing and touch would be put to use, as they worked with blind, sighted and multiply disabled children and adults who were escaping from the noise of the city and the challenges of disability at the camp in Spring Valley.

The camp, which just completed its 79th season late last month, is licensed as a temporary residence rather than a summer camp, hosting parents and children of campers in the family cabins.

First founded in 1926 in Rye, it is run by VISIONS Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a nonprofit that provides education, rehabilitation and social activities for blind New Yorkers.

This summer, the camp was home to 408 visitors who took part in modified sports, family style meals and a custom-designed swimming pool with a ramp for wheelchair users and sprinklers that alert blind campers to the pool’s edges.

For sighted family members who accompanied blind campers, it was a respite from the heat and a chance to meet others who are also caregivers.

“Camp is my only true vacation,” said Maria Garcia, whose daughter, Elora, 8, is visually impaired and has cerebral palsy.

As Elora returned from the computer lab early last month, her mother watched her walk into the pool’s gentle slope. “My child is taken care of, and I can lounge by the pools and have a genuine rest.” This was Garcia’s fifth year at the cam with her daughter.

Garcia, 45, a paramedic for the New York City Fire Department, had also been able to network with other parents, whose encouragement helped her become the president and founder of Parents of Blind Children of New York.

Much of the 35-acre campground has rails and raised walkways with tape markings to show the location of bunks. The pool, dog run, computer center and sports fields are labeled with raised type and Braille for easy identification.

“I don’t use my cane here as much,” said Carmen Kichenama, 48, a Manhattan resident who became blind five years ago. “I don’t need it. It is such a relief to let it go and use the railing. I feel more at ease, and I know that people won’t bump into me, like in the city.”

Like Kichenama, 72 percent of the campers were from New York City, with the remainder traveling from upstate New York, Westchester, Rockland, New Jersey, Connecticut and other parts of the country.

The camp’s funding comes from a number of sources, including the Lion’s Club, the New York State Commission for the Blind and the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. Campers are also asked to contribute, but financial resources are not a qualification for acceptance.

For both adult and teen campers, late afternoon bingo games in the canteen and sing-alongs in the cafeteria gave way to gossip and giggles about summertime crushes.

“What happens at camp stays at camp,” joked Kichenama. “Romance isn’t just for sighted people. They aren’t the only ones who know how to scheme and flirt.”

Though the sighted and the blind mixed almost seamlessly in the camp setting, there were still moments of disagreement or misunderstanding. Dave Durber, 55, the camp counselor specialist, admitted that during the course of the summer he sometimes lost patience with sighted campers and adults.

“My roommate left the door open to the shaving cabinet,” said Durber, a Britain-born Queens resident. “A door is a lethal weapon to a blind person. It is hard to explain this to a sighted person.”

As a reminder to sighted campers and staff, most buildings bore signs requesting that doors stay closed.

But with the diversity of staff, including counselors who were blind, sighted, college students, international travelers and senior citizens, learning to accommodate differences had many rewards.

“I think I realized how much it was teaching my children the year my family was put at a table with special needs campers,” said Roxanne Simms, 53, the camp’s program director, who first attended the camp in 1981 as a camper.

Simms, who is a social worker and counselor at Selis Manor, a residential and educational center for the blind in Manhattan, started using a wheelchair after being hit by a car while walking with her guide dog nine years ago.

“After my accident, I decided to find out what I could still do. And if I didn’t feel it was a very safe place, I wouldn’t have come back,” she said.

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A NATION CHALLENGED: DISLOCATION; Learning to Navigate Where the Invisible Clues Have Changed

By JIM DWYER
Published: February 21, 2002
The New York Times

Past the turnstiles at 42nd Street, just when everyone else wants to hit top speed, Eddie Montanez throttles himself down a notch. Still moving, yes, but slower, more deliberately. Rushing is for people with eyes that still work, and for those who do not have to cut new paths across the city because their old routes were ripped asunder on Sept. 11.

For Mr. Montanez, 40, blind from age 13, the subway beneath the Port Authority Bus Terminal is fresh terrain. He used to come to work on the PATH train to the World Trade Center. Now he must tune his face, his ears, his skin to the currents of the crowds at 42nd Street, while he also screens the pinging MetroCards, the tumble of metal arms in the turnstiles, the mutters of people ordered to Please Swipe Again.

He tries to listen. He wants to be heard. So in his hand, Mr. Montanez says, he holds his cane, a few ounces of fiberglass and aluminum shaped into a long, skinny rod. ''I hit the cane harder, so people notice,'' Mr. Montanez explains. ''Sighted people, you have to watch out for them. People are moving so fast.''

The lost streets near the trade center had been rich with invisible clues about where things stood, how people moved, when traffic surged. The thwack-thwack pulse of a revolving door released wedges of sound and air; that was the entrance to a Borders bookstore near the corner of Church and Vesey.

Down the block, a door to a Krispy Kreme shop pumped its own notes onto the street. The Rite Aid on Church Street had a different odor than the Duane Reade a few blocks away. An exhaust fan above a Greek restaurant marked a spot on Church.

Suddenly, these were gone, or unreachable. For blind people with some light perception, small streets that were once dim, in permanent shadow, now bounce with sunlight for the first time in more than 30 years.

To learn new clues, scores of people who are blind or who have limited vision have spent hundreds of hours learning how to navigate the rearranged city.

''People had incredibly detailed maps of New York City in their heads, and this just wrecked them,'' said Nicole F. Feist, a mobility instructor with Visions, a nonprofit organization on Greenwich Street that got a $37,000 grant from the September 11th Fund to help blind people manage the changed world. ''This is the best city in the country for the blind. It's set up on a grid, set up for pedestrians. There's tons of public transportation.''

Subways were rerouted. Buses did not stop in the same place. Mr. Montanez works on a Web site for the Associated Blind, on William Street, where the utility cables run along the streets and sidewalk, instead of underground.

Another mobility instructor, Annie Presley, pointed out that a route that worked in the morning might be gone by lunchtime. ''It's not just the World Trade Center -- it's the uncertainty,'' she said. ''When the plane crashed in Rockaway, the bridges were closed again.''

The blind had long been told to steer clear of subway platforms that are islands between two tracks, said Annalyn Courtney Barbier, an instructor who helped Mr. Montanez. Because Mr. Montanez lost his PATH stop at the trade center, he often uses Broadway-Nassau, a station that includes an island platform and other vexations for those who can see and for those who cannot.

''I have to know four, three, two routes,'' Mr. Montanez said. ''For everything.''

Long before the catastrophe, Mr. Montanez's cane served as an antenna that sent and received messages. Now it connects him to a drastically changed city.

A few days before the trade center attack, Mr. Montanez returned from Africa, where he had climbed Kilimanjaro. On the morning of the 11th, his office rattled when the first airplane struck. He thought a piece of machinery had been dropped somewhere, so he went down to William Street to investigate. ''I had never used the stairs before, didn't know where the door led to,'' he said.

A building engineer snapped a picture of him in the street, holding a mask, a water bottle and his cane. He walked for miles that day, the cane previewing every step across the stunned streets.

As for his old commuting route, that lost journey still has vivid life in his memory. ''I would arrive by PATH in the trade center,'' said Mr. Montanez, who lives in Hoboken, N.J. ''You would listen if the doors open in front of or behind you. The trick was to find escalators closest to you. To do that, you listen to people walking. Follow that. Make a right. Several steps, then the next right.

''I would be hearing a lot of people walking, then I'd hear the turnstiles. I think there was a bar to the left; there'd be no noise in the morning, but at night, on the way home, there's always music and people talking.

''Then I would hear wide-open space. Go up the stairs, not the escalator.''

Outside, he recalled: ''I avoid the cafe on the left, because tables were set up on the sidewalk. There were planters on the street. I would start trailing people, so I'd be on the corner of Church Street.''

In his vanished streetscape, two of the tallest buildings in the world are scarcely a presence. ''On that corner, there was always a guy -- always this homeless man,'' Mr. Montanez said. ''One time I didn't see him. He was in the hospital, or jail. He always would say, no matter how many times I told him not to yell across to me, 'It's O.K. now.' Once in a while, I gave him a dollar. I hope he made it.

''Make a right, then a left. I would continue walking. There was a combination of very rapid shoe sounds, people walking. A lot of carts of coffee, people buying doughnuts. There was a fruit stand, there, too. A lot of commotion. People selling. Stopping to buy.

''It's kind of sad.''

Articles in this series are reporting on workaday objects that resonate in unusual ways in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Earlier articles are available on the Web: nytimes.com/metro.

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