Free Services Offered for Vision Impaired

The Braille Institute will offer a new community outreach program in Santa Paula beginning Sept. 4 that will provide a wide range of free services for residents of the region who are visually impaired or legally blind.

“We help people adapt to their vision loss and we provide independent living skills, counseling, mobility training, library services, low-vision consultations and field service,” said Mary McGrath, an outreach coordinator.

Members of the Braille Institute meet weekly in Oxnard, Ventura, Camarillo, Ojai, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. Santa Paula meetings will take place Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and noon at the city’s senior center.

For the institute’s 200 clients, whose average age is 80, the loss of their sight can be especially difficult to accept at this time in their life.

“I think the biggest loss is the fact that they’ve had other losses in their lives,” she said. “They’ve lost spouses. Some of them have lived through the Depression. Losing their sight is very hard, because they’re proud and they hate to ask others for help. We help them get their life back.”

The Santa Paula Senior Center is at 530 W. Main St. For information, call 983-3324.