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Lighthouse Marks 25-Year Anniversary

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By CARL ORTH The Suncoast News

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 3, 2008

"Can't" perhaps becomes the biggest hurdle for blind people.

For a quarter century, Lighthouse for the Visually Impaired and Blind has been the beacon for some 20,000 people to find a path out of darkness.

"Blindness is the No. 1 fear that people face," said Sylvia Stinson Perez, the nonprofit agency's newly named executive director. She brings knowledge to the job of a person legally blind from a congenital eye condition.

Perez shares an eagerness with the Lighthouse staff of 14 to build on successes. They also currently face some stiff challenges: a decrease in state funds, a wrecked van and high gasoline prices.

"It takes a lot more energy to be blind; it really does," Perez said. "If you work on developing those skills, you can be just as competent as anyone else."

Many Activities Adapted For Blind

Many adaptive sports are proof of that. Go-Ball, a soccer spinoff, is a "blast." Beep Baseball uses a ball with an embeded device that makes a beeping noise to help visually impaired batters. Blind skiing and judo are among many other choices.

When clients first arrive at Lighthouse, according to Perez, they are focused on the "can'ts": can't cook, can't read, can't write checks, can't take medications independently.

"It takes a lot of problem solving" and ingenuity, Perez said. Simple steps include a rubber band around a pill bottle to indicate evening medications. There are classes that teach people how to mark stoves and other kitchen appliances so they can be used by people with limited or no sight.

Soon the light bulb goes off over the heads of clients that yes, they still can do many things.

"It's a caring community," Perez said. It's been that way since 1983, when some 150 people showed up at a town hall meeting about establishing a center for the blind.

Early Years Not Easy

Lighthouse struggled in the early years, Ron Thornton, a west Pasco lawyer, recalled. The first executive director, Chuck Jackson, talked his buddy Thornton into serving on the board of directors. Little did Thornton know he would hold that post for 25 years.

Roxann Mayros and Don Griffin also held the executive director's post before Perez.

These days, Lighthouse aids people in Pasco and Hernando counties.

Totally blind, Lighthouse staffer Priscilla Nadzeika has witnessed many changes. First came the fledgling agency launched in a New Port Richey house on Virginia Avenue a church had donated. Then the agency moved to Main Street for a time.

Lighthouse landed in the former home of the Hudson Library, on Old Dixie Highway. The severe March 1993 storm flooded the county-owned building and nearly wiped out Lighthouse.

In October 1996, Lighthouse finally settled into its current location in the county-owned facility at 8610 Galen Wilson Blvd. in Port Richey, just north of Ridge Road.

From when Lighthouse formed in 1983 to the technology now available now for the blind is like "night and day," Perez said.

Some wristwatches announce the time, for instance, although Perez prefers a flip-top, tactile watch that lets her feel Braille codes.

Cell phones can announce which buttons blind people are pushing. A host of clocks, scales, microwave ovens and other devices can get downright chatty thanks to computer chips.

Computers come with all types of scanners, overhead projectors and other adapters for the blind. Programs can read back what's on the screen.

As the area population grows older, Lighthouse services will be needed more than ever, Perez said. Some 15 percent of Pasco residents older than 70 are have impaired vision or are blind.

No cure exists for macular degeneration of the retina, an age-related common cause of blindness, along with diabetic retinopathy.

In a medical class long ago, Perez was struck by the delicate structure of the eye. The smallest blood vessels are in the eyes. The retina is so thin that it split when she barely touched it with her fingernail.

Lighthouse clients learn blindness "doesn't have to be the end," Perez said. Blind people "can be your co-worker. They can be your friend."

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