[Blindtlk] Shopping Assistance

[Ericka Short]

Mike,

Are you aware of what the county offers?  Peter brought up a good point 
about services that deliver groceries for you.  Call your ADRC (Aging and 
Disability Resource Center) to see what they offer if you don't know.  They 
might be a good place to register a complaint too.  They might have someone 
who has a list of businesses that are friendly to the  disabled.  They will 
take them off the list if you report your incident.  I know Kenosha will.  I 
don't know where you office is, but you know better how to contact folks up 
there.

Ericka

-----Original Message----- 
From: Peter Donahue via blindtlk
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 10:22 AM
To: Judy Jones ; Blind Talk Mailing List
Subject: [Blindtlk] Shopping Assistance


Hello everyone,

    I've always been under the understanding that stores of any kind are not
obligated to provide shopping assistance for disabled buyers but most of
them do it volunterrilly. Some will assign you someone to help yu throughout
the entire store while others may hand you off to another courtesy person in
each department in which you shop.

    H.E.B. is a very large supermarket chain in Texas and parts of northern
Mexico. They pride themselves on assisting disabled shoppers. The vast
majorrity of courtesy clerks that have assisted us have been friendly,
knowledgeable, and will do much to make the in-store shopping experience a
fruitful one for a disabled shopper. Some H.E.B. stores have courtesy staff
designated as "Shopping Assistants." Since the Lincoln Heights store has
such persons on staff we often do our grocery shopping at this location.

    Outfits like Wallmart would do well to learn from H.E.B.'S example. They
seem to be the worst when it comes to getting shopping assistance. We've
also had very good experiences with Sears, Best-Buy, Dillards, Guitar
Center, Barnes&Noble,and others.

        We recently ventured in to the unknown when we ordered our new
washing machine from Sears. Since Kenmore Appliances tend to be
blind-friendly we bought a Kenmore front-loading washing machine online!
Mary's copyholder helped us Braille the buttons all of which can be felt by
a blind person and activated. We also had the appliance's owner's manual and
quick reference guide Brailled. Anyone who owns a front loading washer knows
that they sound like a jet  engine revving up when the spin cycle starts.
Since Sears is a network partner we really bought the washing machine from
ourselves!

    The beauty of shopping today is that we now can choose how we will buy
things when we need them. Some items such as appliances may require a trip
to the store to check accessibility while others such as items bought
regularly could be perchased online saving one needless trips to the store
and having to get assistance the store may or may not provide. We also have
a service called Burpy that will pick up groceries and other items from
local supermarkets and other stores and deliver them to the customer's home.
The one issue we have with them is that their service can only be used with
Google Chrome. I have discussed this matter with them and have urged them to
moddify their shopping platform so it works in all Web browsers and mobile
platforms. Check them out at: http://www.burpy.com

Hope this helps.

Peter Donahue



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Ericka J. Short
262-697-0510

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". Philippians 4:13

"No hand is too small or too big to do good in this world." EJ. Short