Announcer 0:00

Defeating Darkness with Dr. David Rimberg and co-host Paul Miller is brought to you by Sights for Hope. Serving the Lehigh Valley and Monroe County, Sights for Hope empowers people who are blind or have visual impairments to live confidently by teaching skills, delivering supports, and championing assistive device solutions. At Sights for Hope, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to clearly see what's possible. Find out more today at Sightsfor Hope.org.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 0:34

Welcome to Defeating Darkness. I am David Rimberg.

Paul Miller 0:40

and I am Paul Miller.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 0:42

Together, we will explore how we achieve purpose with our loss of vision. I'd like to welcome everybody. Today's guest is Brian O'Neal. He's the senior instructor and guide dog mobility trainer at The Seeing Eye. Thank you for having me on the show. Brian, what does your job consist of?

Brian O'Neal 1:14

My job is to train dogs to become seeing eye dogs. So it's a five-month training cycle. So we have four months where we're training the dogs and the ins and outs of becoming successful guide dogs, uh, navigating different environments, getting folks around safely that are blind and visually impaired. And then the fifth month of training is when we match those dogs with people who have applied to the seeing eye and they've since been accepted.

Paul Miller 1:40

So, Brian, what made you get into this particular line of work?

Brian O'Neal 1:44

Yeah, so I had a pretty circuitous route to the seeing I. I grew up in New Jersey, born and raised. And if you live in North Jersey, especially, you know about the seeing I. They have different programs. They come to the schools and educate kids about how do you interact with a service dog or not interact with the service dog. So I was aware of The Seeing Eye. I had been down in Morristown many times and seen people working guide dogs. Yeah. So my background is actually in finance. I went to the College of New Jersey for finance. And I'm also a musician, a singer-songwriter. So after college, I graduated and started working in corporate finance and was pursuing music at the same time. And I hated corporate finance. I figured that out pretty quickly. Kind of figured that would be the case. But you know, it's like you always want something practical, right? Get a degree in something practical. But, you know, I was kind of hoping the music would work out, and I did have some reasonable success with that. But those two things kind of faded away. And I was just about 30 years old and kind of had a blank slate in front of me because I knew I didn't want to necessarily do what I had gone to school for. I had thoroughly pursued the music at that point as a career. And just yeah, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew that when I was doing finance and I was making good money, I wasn't very happy. So I really wanted to do something where I felt like I was actually making a difference in people's lives and just kind of have more of an impact that way in helping people. And so I was working in New York City. A buddy of mine had set me up with just a temp job at a radio station. I would take the bus in from New Jersey into New York and to Port Authority, and then I would hop a subway and then do some walking to get to the office. There actually, there was a dog guide user that I would encounter pretty much every week on my walk in, like those last couple blocks to the office. And yeah, I was just kind of blown away by it, right? It's something I kind of knew about, but unless you're in the field or the industry, you don't really see it that much, probably. Yeah, I was blown away. And I was like, you know, I wonder how that works. Like I wonder, I wonder what that's about. And then obviously, like I said, had familiarity with the seeing I. So yeah, at that point I was kind of looking at different nonprofits to work at. And uh I figured, hey, you know what? Let me see what's going on at the seeing I and I put an application in. And Lee Johnson, who hired me and was my boss at the time, she's now retired. She said the only reason she called me in for the interview was because my resume was the only one that didn't have the word dog all over the resume. So it's kind of funny. But yeah, she brought me in and the rest is kind of history. Just interviewed, went through that process. And then ironically, when after I had done my first couple interviews, I was back in the city at my job and was at Port Authority taking the C train downtown to where I needed to go. I ran into Lee with the two apprentices that she was actually training at that point in time. And we just kind of bumped into each other on the platform. And I think both of us were like, I think this is a sign. Yeah, that was 16 years ago. Interesting, Brian. As you know, I have a guide dog in Felton sitting next to me here. But I remember the first time I went to the seeing I and they said, You're good, we're going to take you to New York City. And I was like scared to death. Right. Because I'm thinking, New York City, me and a dog trying to walk down the sidewalk. But I'm gonna tell you, it was a really neat, neat experience being able to do that and being able to get through the street without bumping into anyone and uh my dog doing exactly what he was supposed to do. Awesome. Yeah, it's incredible.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 5:09

Brian, do you have to have special certifications or certificates to do this kind of work?

Brian O'Neal 5:15

Yeah, it's like an apprenticeship at any of the trade school, right? So if you're gonna go to become a plumber, you kind of learn hands-on on the job. So, no, you don't need any prior specialty experience. Like I said, I came from a finance background. I think a lot of people do come from an animal background, right? We have a lot of people that puppy raise for the school that ultimately work their way into the organization. But all the training is done, it's a very hands-on process. You're kind of learning the job while you're also doing it at the same time. And it's a three-year apprenticeship. You go through six training cycles. So, assuming everything goes well and you take a series of exams and you do all the requirements you need to, about three years it takes from starting to becoming uh an associate instructor.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 5:58

How many trainers are there in the organization?

Brian O'Neal 6:01

Uh, we have about 35 instructors on staff right now.

Paul Miller 6:05

Brian, could you kind of fill us in on the history of The Seeing Eye?

Brian O'Neal 6:09

Yeah, so The Seeing Eye was founded in 1929. It was incorporated, but two years prior in 1927, uh, there was a young man by the name of Morris Frank. He's considered the founder of The Seeing Eye. And there was an article in the Saturday Evening Post called The The Seeing Eye that was written by Dorothy Harrison, who's the foundress of The Seeing Eye. And she was born in Philadelphia, native out of Pennsylvania. And she was actually over in Europe, and she was looking into German schools that had just started training guide dogs for war-blinded veterans that were largely blinded from the use of mustard gas in World War I. She was interested in dog breeding, and she had made her way over there to find out what they were doing with that and learning about that. So she wrote an article about kind of the work they were doing and training these new guide dogs. And Morris Frank had read that. He was in Tennessee, and he wrote a letter to Dorothy after reading that. And he basically said, I gotta have one of these dogs. Like, I will do anything to get one of these dogs. What do I need to do? And they communicated back and forth. And Dorothy said, Come on over and we'll train you with a dog. And he received Buddy, the first official seeing eye dog. So he went over to Switzerland and trained with Buddy for a few weeks and came back to the States. That was kind of how it all began. And then in 1929, they officially incorporated The Seeing Eye down in Tennessee. And then Dorothy, I think, being from Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania area, had a lot of connections up here. So they moved operations up here. And originally it was founded in Whippany, New Jersey, and then ultimately now it's Morristown, New Jersey. And that's where we're on a 60-acre campus in uh Morristown.

Paul Miller 7:51

Am I correct in saying that they actually have a statue of Morris Frank and Buddy in the center of town?

Brian O'Neal 7:58

Yeah, they do. We call it the Green. There's kind of a big square in the middle of town that traffic has to go around the outside of, right in the center of Morristown, and on one of the islands, there's a life-size bronze statue of Morris Frank and Buddy working together.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 8:13

Do you have any particular breeds that seeing eye dogs are required?

Brian O'Neal 8:19

Yeah, so we breed our own dogs. We use German Shepherds, we use Labrador Retrievers, we use Golden Retrievers, and we also crossbreed our Goldens and Labs. And those are the three main categories of dogs that we use.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 8:34

Yeah, Brian, how does the dog distinguish between being a pet and a guide dog?

Brian O'Neal 8:40

That's a great question. The harness has a big deal to do with it. So even in the time when they're puppies, with our volunteer families that raise these dogs for their first year or so, when they are going out of the house or they're going to be going into stores and doing stuff, quote unquote working at that point, they have a little vest that they put on. So once they're mature enough and old enough and they've kind of passed these basic obedience tests, they do what's called getting vested. Basically, the puppy earns its little vest. They start with a little bandana and then they get this kind of vest that they wear.

Paul Miller 9:09

You know, Brian, of course, this is my second seeing eye dog. My first seeing eye dog, uh Rascal, I took him home and I followed all the rules. And then as time went on, I got slacked off a little bit with the rules, and I let some well, because I work around children, I let the kids pet them. Okay, well, that was the first step to disaster. And then because you know, when they're working, they they really need to be working. And the the things that I also did is I would give them like a little piece of bacon, you know, again, a terrible mistake. And it really didn't do well for Rascal and nor did it do well for me. And over time I realized that when we got felt and we said, uh, no way, yeah, we're not doing any of those things, and now he's amazing and continues to do that. You mentioned a couple of times, Brian, about puppies. Do you have like special programs for the puppies?

Brian O'Neal 10:13

Yeah, so we have a very robust puppy raising program, and it really is the lifeblood of the organization. We could not do what we do with the efficacy that we do it and at the scale we do it without so many selfless volunteers that participate in this program. So we have our own breeding station out in Chester, New Jersey, which is just west of The Seeing Eye, and that's its own closed campus where it's our breeding center. So all the puppies are bred and welped there. And when they're eight weeks, they get placed in individual homes throughout New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey. And we have volunteer families that basically agree to raise these puppies from the time they're eight weeks old till about 13 months, 14 months, something like that. Then they'll come back into the seeing eye for formal training. And they're supported by area coordinators, and each geographical area has a puppy club where all the people that are volunteering get together and they talk about different challenges they're having. But the main crux of it is just to give a supportive and loving environment to these puppies and just make sure they're well exposed, that they get out in the world. Some grow up in the country on farms with livestock and chickens, others grow up in New York City. So, just like the ultimate destinations for these dogs, once they are officially seeing eye dogs, their roots are very varied. But the one thing that is consistent is just the love and support they get from these families and that environmental exposure, getting them out and about, seeing all the different things they can see. That way, when they are adult dogs and ready to guide, they have this great foundation. And just like human development, you can't always just go back and get them exposed to certain things. It's very crucial for these dogs to experience sights and sounds and all these things in these formative years. And we saw that during COVID, right? When folks were kind of trapped inside. We saw a definite change in the dog's ability to adapt to different things in the environment.

Paul Miller 12:08

Do all the dogs that you have as puppy raisers, do they all make it at The Seeing Eye?

Brian O'Neal 12:14

They don't all make it. It could be for any reason, it could be temperamental, could be medical. Our approximate success rate right now is about 60%. So 60% of the dogs who return for formal training. And that includes dogs that become guides or who enter the breeding program. And then dogs that don't make the guide or breeding programs, we call them career change dogs when they're placed with other service organizations, law enforcement, search and rescue, or they're adopted by the public. But we don't consider career change dogs in that success rate.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 12:45

Brian, what are the benefits of a seeing eye dog?

Brian O'Neal 12:49

Great question. There's a lot of benefits. I can just kind of highlight a few of them. One would be just the speed and efficiency of traveling and navigating. The seeing eye dogs are obstacle avoiders, whereas when you travel with a cane, a cane is an object detector. So if you think of two people traveling down the same sidewalk in their neighborhood, one's using a cane, one's using a seeing eye dog. Let's say it's garbage day. So there's garbage cans out blocking the sidewalk, some are tipped over, what have you. The person that's gonna go down that sidewalk with the cane is going to find every single one of those. Whether it's partially over the sidewalk, they're gonna figure out is the whole thing blocking the sidewalk? How big is it? So they're gonna be touching each one and then navigating around and then finding the next one. Whereas a seeing eye dog is trained to avoid obstacles and go around them. So that person may be unaware that most or some of those cans are there, unless maybe it's fully blocking the sidewalk and the dog has to bring the person off the sidewalk onto the grass and then back onto the sidewalk. Maybe just subtle movements, fluid movements, they're not even realizing they're getting around a can that's maybe blocking just a part of the sidewalk. So in avoiding that, the speed of travel is much, much quicker because you're just getting around things. Our former president, Jim Cooch, had said, it's like, I don't know what's there, I just know I'm moving, versus like someone who's using a cane, they find every single thing. They know the size, the shape, how much of the sidewalk is blocked. So just the speed and efficiency of getting around streets and pedestrians and obstacles. Another major difference is safety. When you think of overhead obstacles, right? Like low-hanging branches or a flag or something that may hang down head height to someone, the cane's not gonna find that. But your shoulder or your face certainly will. With seeing eye dogs, they're trained to watch out not only for things that you might trip on or you might contact with your feet, but also things that are hanging down, right? And they're gonna learn as they spend more and more time with that specific handler, how high they are, what are the type of things that this person might catch themselves on. So if a person's instructor that trained their seeing eye dog was six, four, they're probably never gonna hit their head on anything. But if the trainer was, you know, five two and the person who gets the dog is six one, there's probably gonna be a bit of a learning curve. But the point is a seeing eye dog is responsible for the whole person. So they're gonna be watching for things that you might catch with your shoulder or head height that a cane would not. Uh, the other way where you kind of see that safety piece come into play is with traffic. These dogs, we train them very extensively to avoid moving cars and watch for cars before they start a street crossing. And then once they are crossing the street, they're still looking out for cars. A cane isn't going to discriminate for any moving traffic. As a cane user, your job is to assess when traffic's in your favor, initiate a safe crossing, and get yourself across the street as quickly as possible. With a dog, it's the light's in my favor. I can go ahead and start this crossing. Juno forward. Juno's the name we give to just any general dog. Juno forward, and before the dog moves, it's gonna look. And oh, okay, we got a car moving. I'm gonna disobey you. It's the intelligent disobedience part, which is a kind of a cornerstone of what we do with the seeing eye. And or if you're halfway across the crossing and a car cuts you off, you know, it could be an electric car that you may not hear, or even now with e-bikes or or anything, the dog's gonna see that and stop for it, as opposed to a cane. You're just going at your own speed that you want to go to. The cane's not going to adjust for anything environmentally. It's just doesn't discriminate that way. I think another big piece of one of the reasons people get a seeing eye dog, or one of the benefits is that companionship that you get. Dogs are called man's best friend for a reason, right? The bonds we've formed with dogs in all kinds of capacities over thousands and thousands of years, it still holds true today. I mean, even those of us that have pets, they really become part of the family. And for some folks, they may live alone and be on their own and even somewhat isolated, this dog is with them all the time. As pet owners, we have to leave our dogs behind during the day, right? We go to work and the dog stays home. But for someone who's using a seeing eye dog, they're at their side day in, day out through the good, the bad, and the ugly. It provides a huge emotional support for people.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 17:02

Brian, if I was considering getting a dog, what are the steps required from The Seeing Eye?

Brian O'Neal 17:09

Yeah, so if you went to our website, which is seeingeye.org, you can enter an application there and that takes you through all the steps you need to go through. You need to have some background in orientation and mobility. So you need to have received some very basic navigation skills as a person who's visually impaired, training with an orientation and mobility specialist with the white cane, learning how to navigate the environment. And you also have to be somewhat physically able. So you would go to our website, fill out the application process, medical forms, letters of recommendation, that kind of stuff. There's a whole checklist you can go through. Once we receive that all, then an instructor like myself will fly out to where that person lives and do what we call an applicant visit, where we'll do, I had mentioned that word earlier, a Juno walk, where we as an instructor basically kind of take a handle, take the dog side of the handle, and teach the person the very basics of what it's like to handle a dog and really try and figure out what kind of dog would do well with this person. How fast does this person walk? How strong is this person? How's their balance? What kind of routine do they have? Do they live in a big city? Do they take the subway every day? Or are they out in a rural environment? And that'll help us get an idea of what kind of dog we'd be looking at. We also want to make sure that it's a safe environment for the dog too, right? That the house is clean and well kept and that the person is going to be able to take care of the dog as well. But also, like I said, there has to be a need. If the person lives somewhere where their front door's right out onto a busy highway with no shoulder, no sidewalks, they can't really work the dog, and they don't really have a way to get somewhere to work the dog, that's probably not going to work.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 18:46

Brian, what's the next step once you've been accepted to The Seeing Eye?

Brian O'Neal 18:51

So once you're accepted in, then we identify the right dog for you. So usually we like to bring someone in when we feel like, hey, you know, we have two, three dogs we feel like could really work for this person. And the manager of that group of instructors that have trained that next group of dogs will reach out to folks that are waiting for a dog that have been accepted and say, you know, hey, we think we have a dog for you. And then basically, if that works with your schedule, then the applicant is flown in or travel is arranged to come to our campus at Morristown and they come stay in our facility. If you're a brand new student, you're there for 25 days. And then a retrained student or a returning student, they're there for 18 days.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 19:33

Yeah, Brian, what is the cost of a dog and the cost of training?

Brian O'Neal 19:38

So we estimate the approximate cost to create each partnership to be about $75,000. Since 1933, our tuition is just $150 for first-time students, $50 for returning students, and then since 1941, just $1 tuition for veterans of military service. And this includes providing the dog, instruction, transportation, room, board, all the equipment, and lifetime follow-up services as well.

Paul Miller 20:10

You know what was really cool though. Uh, when I was there, I will tell you, you would go for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and it was like going to a restaurant. Yeah, people waiting on tables, serving you. We had tablecloths. It was just a really great experience, and the food was great.

Brian O'Neal 20:29

We get that a lot. The food is very good, and it's not an accident that it kind of feels like a restaurant, because that can be one of the more stressful trips someone does with a dog, especially for the first time, right? They get home and they're actually going out into a restaurant and there's food around and people and crumbs and all that kind of stuff. So that is one of the reasons we have that set up. We have all the staff eating lunch in there. So that gives you every day practice, working around tables, people eating food in that noisy environment, finding your chair, that kind of thing, getting the dog settled. So it is meant to be a practice to replicate that experience.

Paul Miller 21:04

So, Brian, how many dogs have been placed with clients through the seeing I since the beginning?

Brian O'Neal 21:12

It's an amazing number. Since 1929, we have successfully made 18,860 partnerships between individuals and dogs since our inception. Currently, like current active seeing I dog handlers in the United States and Canada is about 1,500. That's amazing.

Paul Miller 21:31

How much does it cost to operate an organization like The Seeing Eye?

Brian O'Neal 21:35

Yeah, our annual operating expenses are about 34.7 million a year.

Paul Miller 21:42

Wow.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 21:44

Brian, how do uh people find out about the organization?

Brian O'Neal 21:48

Yeah, the best way to get information is to head to our website, which is seeing eye.org. So S-E-E-I-N-G-I, which is e-y-e, dot org.

Paul Miller 22:01

It must be really interesting because I wonder how you get funding for all of this work that you do.

Brian O'Neal 22:08

Yeah, it's it's all privately funded. So it could be just small individual donations. We have all different programs at schools. One's called Pennies for Puppies, Dollars for Dogs, to legacy and giving. So for folks who think about where they want to leave their money, it's a whole wide range, but we don't receive any funding from the government. Yeah, it's all 100% privately funded.

Paul Miller 22:30

If someone wanted to donate money, you'd be okay with that.

Brian O'Neal 22:33

100%. Yeah, that's our lifeblood, and it keeps us up and running and getting guide dogs into people's hands.

Paul Miller 22:39

Brian, how many other facilities exist like The Seeing Eye? And what makes The Seeing Eye different?

Brian O'Neal 22:47

Yeah. So as far as I know, in the United States, I think there's 14 IGDF, and that stands for the International Guide Dog Foundation Accredited Schools. So in order to become accredited by the IGDF, a school has to meet a certain set of standards in terms of the breeding and training and care of the dogs and the whole training process. So yeah, there's 14 schools, all of various sizes. The Seeing Eye is obviously one of the biggest, but you have some real small schools that maybe only do a handful of partnerships a year. So one of the things that makes us very different is our ownership policy. A lot of the other schools, they allow the people to have conditional ownership. So if you can keep the dog, but we're gonna check up on you, we're gonna come out and visit, make sure X, Y, and Z. We feel like we do enough due diligence up front, enough vetting up front that when you are accepted to our school, and again, that goes back to our belief of independence and dignity. Yeah, we're entrusting you with these dogs. You're gonna come for the training, you're gonna know how to care for them, and we have faith in you to give you full and unbridled ownership of the dog. Yeah, and one of the other major differences is just the training methods that we use. We use tried and true methods that were developed starting back in the early 1920s. Most other schools have graduated almost completely to R or positive reinforcement, and they do a lot of almost exclusively tree training with the dogs, where we're using repetition, consistency, and the qualities of our dogs to want to do this task for us, to want to partner with our people. And whereas other schools, if the dog is stopping at the curb, they have a tree pouch on their side, they're gonna give the dog a food reward for accomplishing all these basic tasks. We do use some tree training specifically for targeting of like doorknobs and some other refined areas, but mostly the meat and potatoes of the guide work is just traditional training methods.

Paul Miller 24:43

One of the things that I noticed when I brought my dog home was if I had a problem with the handling in some way, shape, or form, and you know, you guys were only a phone call away. And I got guidance through that phone call. But if I continued to have the problem, someone would actually come out to my house or my business and be able to work with me, which I thought was just absolutely amazing.

Brian O'Neal 25:12

Yeah, it's one of the best parts of the organization is just our commitment to a lifetime follow-up services. So part of my job as an instructor is not just to train the dogs, not just to train the people, but also to go out into the field, do those applicant visits, and also help people troubleshoot if they're having any issues with their dog or or they need something, we will fly out there wherever they are and meet them there to help them out.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 25:34

Brian, do you have any programs that you'd like to share with us?

Brian O'Neal 25:38

Yeah, so just actually in the past couple weeks, we announced the establishment of our veterinary financial assistance fund. And it's a pilot program that helps Seeing Eye graduates cover veterinary costs for their guide dogs. So there's two types of assistance available: routine and chronic care assistance for everyday and ongoing needs, and emergency veterinary care assistance for urgent, unplanned care. And the seeing I will pay veterinary providers directly for that veterinary care. So the routine and chronic care assistance, it's a need-based program for our graduates that earn less than $75,000 a year, and that's gross income before taxes, and an annual maximum benefit of $750 per guide. That's gonna be rolling out in this coming January of 2027. Covers an annual exam, vaccinations like rabies, distemper, a nail trimming, and dental cleaning. And then the emergency veterinary care, that's gonna be beginning in July of 2027, and that's an annual maximum benefit of $5,000 per guide, and it's open to any graduate with an active guide who would like to apply, and there's no uh income requirement for that category. So, and that covers emergency care, such as like a foreign body surgery, severe vomiting, that kind of stuff, or a severe injury that you know can't wait for a routine visit. I see this as a real game changer for the seeing eye because not only are we the only school that gives the full ownership, but now we're also doing that veterinary care piece as well and hasn't been done before in the industry. We're the we're we're the first to do that. So I'm excited. Yeah, and the other program, which this current class of students that's at school getting their dogs, they just got their dogs last week. They're participating in those who wanted to in our Meta glasses program. And so, you know, the company Meta makes AI-powered glasses with cameras on the frames. A lot of our grads have them already. So we decided to kind of get ahead of things, and we have a program where folks who want to participate in this, learn how to use the technology in conjunction with the guide dog. Uh, you know, they can apply for that program. Uh, and then they come to the school, they get a free pair of metaglasses from us. Um, and later on in the training cycle, they get specific training on how to integrate that into the guide work that they're already doing. It requires a bit of pre-work on the front end. So the person has to develop some skills and and familiarity with the technology. But yeah, that's the uh the program. And if anyone has any questions about that, they can again head to our website and get information about that.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 28:11

Brian, it's been a real exciting moment for me. And I'm gonna speak for Paul that uh you are a wonderful guest. Okay, and you've enlightened us both about what's going on at The Seeing Eye. And I just want to acknowledge you for the support that you're giving people who are visually impaired and blind. And thank you, and thank the dogs.

Brian O'Neal 28:39

I'll give them extra cookies. Okay, yeah. I'll say David sent these.

Paul Miller 28:43

Thanks a lot, Brian. It was it was awesome.

Brian O'Neal 28:45

Yeah, I appreciate you guys doing this and and uh allowing us to be on this platform and and to share our mission and and hope that we uh we try and provide.

Paul Miller 29:00

I'm Paul Miller and thanks for listening. And I'm David Rimberg. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Friday at 6 p.m. and listen to Defeating Darkness Podcast.

Announcer 29:13

Defeating Darkness was produced by Expect Good Media producer Lys Sparrow-Serraino and post-production editor Daniel Childs. A special thank you to assistant editor Logan Mackin, Colin Poole for the theme music, co-host Paul Miller, and host Dr. David Rimberg.

Speaker 29:34

Defeating Darkness with Dr. David Rimberg and co-host Paul Miller is brought to you by Sights for Hope. Serving the Lehigh Valley and Monroe County Sights for Hope empowers people who are blind or have visual impairments to live confidently by teaching skills, delivering supports, and championing assistive device solutions. At Sights for Hope, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to clearly see what's possible. Find out more today at Sightsfor Hope.org.