[Nfb-krafters-korner] FW: Help on the horizon

Tue Dec 17 20:46:29 UTC 2013

Look What I found!!!

Terry P.

-----Original Message-----
From: H. Field [mailto:missheather at comcast.net] 
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 4:07 PM
To: NFB-Talk at NFBnet.org
Subject: Help on the horizon

Chicago Daily Herald
Monday, May 20, 2002

Help on the horizon Crystal Lake-based agency for blind,visually impaired
celebrates 25th anniversary

By Elizabeth Harmon

Imagine not being able to read your phone bill or having to experience
museum exhibits only through taped lectures.

Blind since birth, Camille Caffarelli was quite familiar with those
situations and plenty of others like them.

And Caffarelli's blindness made her uniquely qualified to help companies and
institutions find ways to address them.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Horizons for the Blind, the
small, not-for-profit agency that Caffarelli founded in Chicago's Rogers
Park neighborhood
in 1977, now makes its home in downtown Crystal Lake. It employs more than
20 people - many of them blind or visually impaired.   With a mission of
improving
the quality of life for the visually impaired through better accessibility,
Caffarelli and her staff act as consultants and produce Braille, large print
and audio materials for public institutions, corporations, small businesses
and individuals.

It's no accident that the invitations to Horizons' 25th anniversary gala
contained both printed and Braille versions.

"I wanted to make a statement that accessibility is something that should
just be done across the board," said Caffarelli, who serves as Horizons'
executive
director.

"Braille readers are not illiterate; we just use a different code of
writing."

The impetus to launch Horizons stemmed not from her personal frustrations,
but the need to earn a living in the aftermath of a family tragedy.

A stay-at-home mother with three young children, Caffarelli was suddenly
thrust into the working world when her husband died.

Though she had earned a degree in psychology from Loyola University, her
desire to work within walking distance of her home and her children's school
seriously
limited her options.

But the May 1977 passage of Section 504 of 1973's Rehabilitation Act, which
required that all publicly funded institutions be made accessible to all,
gave
her an idea. The Rehabilitation Act was a precursor to the more recent
Americans With Disabilities Act.

Caffarelli began working with Chicago museums to help them improve their
accessibility to the blind and visually impaired. This included creating
print
materials and signs, and even helping to create touchable exhibits and
artifact replicas, giving the blind an alternative to dull, taped
descriptions.

Within a few years, Horizons' customer base had expanded to include Braille
billing services for utility companies and other businesses.

"Each month, when a blind person got their phone bill, they would have to
have someone else read it to them. That's no one else's business,"
Caffarelli
said. "When the bill is in Braille, it's good (public relations) for the
company, and it's good for the self-respect of the individual, and generally
speaking,
they pay their bills faster."

Caffarelli said she founded Horizons as a not-for-profit agency in order to
serve visually impaired individuals at no charge.

"If an individual wants something in Braille, they should be able to have
it," she said.

Horizons also publishes a nationally distributed magazine, "Seeing It Our
Way," which includes recipes and crafts.

The agency also relies on a core of volunteers and donations from the
community.

Horizons' Crystal Lake headquarters puts Caffarelli's philosophy of
across-the-board accessibility into practice. It is located within walking
distance
of the Metra station to serve the needs of the workers who commute from Des
Plaines, Elmwood Park, Harvard and other communities.

Horizons also uses a PACE bus to bring in other employees not served by
Metra.

The two-level office boasts an open-floor layout with work- stations grouped
around the rooms' perimeters. Each work-station is customized to meet the
physical
and occupational needs of the person who uses it.

Computers are equipped with large-print monitors and vocal screen readers.

Raised, tactile pictures decorate the walls. In a conference room, touchable
models of animals, landmark buildings and the human reproductive system help
employees to better understand and describe objects they have never seen.

Downstairs, Braille printers produce reams of material, including nearly
8,500 monthly utility and credit card statements in both English and
Spanish.

Crystal Lake city councilman Jeff Thorsen serves as treasurer of Horizons'
board of directors and has worked closely with the agency as president of
the
community's Lions Club chapter.

"Our charge as Lions is to serve people who are sight- and hearing-impaired
so our mission falls right in with what Horizons does," Thorsen said.

"Not only is Horizons providing employment, but of course their ultimate
goal is to help people conduct their day-to-day business with ease," he
said.

Thorsen and other members of the Lions were on hand for Horizon's 25th
Anniversary dinner earlier this month at the Holiday Inn in Crystal Lake.

In addition to entertainment by the "Those Were The Days" radio players
troupe, the event also featured awards to three companies, the Hyatt Hotel
Corporation,
Convergys and Motorola, which have made a commitment to improving their
accessibility.

Hyatt has been a Horizons client since 1992, and the agency produces about
half of the company's Braille and large-print customer information packages,
said Vice President of Engineering Thomas Riegelman. Company-wide, Hyatt has
found that promoting a philosophy of accessibility benefits not only
customers
but employees as well.

"It's improved the attitude of our employees in general and improved our
ability to recruit employees with disabilities," Riegelman said.

"We have hundreds of employees with various conditions, from a senior vice
president down to line workers in the hotels," he added.

"In our reservations office in Omaha, we have a man who is legally blind and
uses a talking computer to do his job. He's one of our best
reservationists."

None of that would come as a surprise to Caffarelli.

"Disability is just a small part of who a person is, and while ours is a
very visible thing - people take one look at us and know we're blind - it's
a lot
less inhibiting than some of the other physical things that people have to
work with," she said.

"Camille has really tried to stress that there are no handicaps, just
different ways to do things," Thorsen said.

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