AID TO THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED

VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITIES

15415 E Jefferson
Grosse Pointe Park MI 48230
313-824-4710
F: 822-4233
www.eyeson.org

Martha Gorey Resource Center

The Martha Gorey Resource Center at the DIO is open throughout the week. Its volunteers sell materials to visually impaired persons and families from all over Michigan and Ontario who visit the Institute in search of appliances necessary to make their lives more livable. The DIO has the largest collection of such goods in southeast Michigan. They are priced virtually at our cost. Volunteers aid the visually impaired and their families in selecting these aids and appliances and in managing the store itself. Volunteers with retail experience and great patience with visually impaired patrons are always greatly prized.

Support Group Volunteers

Under our direction, support groups for folks with age related macular degeneration and other visual impairments are constantly expanding. We now have the largest visually impaired support groups for elderly patients with age related macular degeneration in the United States. To further accomplish this, we need volunteers from many different areas of metro Detroit to manage these groups.

Support Group Expansion Initiatives

Our location in Grosse Pointe, advantageous for those folks on the east side of the city is remote and accessible only with difficulty to persons in Dearborn, Birmingham, Warren, downtown Detroit, etc. The Institute's Aid to the Visually Impaired programs are expanding into a variety of other cities. We have created the model.

Drivers for the Visually Impaired

Throughout the year, every other week on Monday and Wednesday mornings (and on some evenings), drivers go out into the community and bring visually impaired and blind adults to the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology for our visually impaired support group meetings. Much of our success is dependent on our transportation system. Obviously, these people who are either blind or have lost their central vision, cannot drive themselves. Therefore, we are always looking for more drivers.

"Readers"

Volunteers who agree to "read" fall into two categories:

-Readers of local newspapers: As the name suggests, these volunteers read local newspapers onto cassette tapes which are mailed to visually impaired and blind. The usual time commitment is once per month. These efforts are highly appreciated by our shut-in non-reading public.
- Personal readers for visually impaired: On their own and not as an organized DIO volunteer effort, people visit homes, or apartments, of visually impaired people and read their mail to them. One can only appreciate the value of such readers if one imagines what it must be like to receive a stack of Christmas cards, but to have no idea who sent them.