Delta Area of the Blind

Organization advocates for people with vision impairment

When Craig Ancell became part of the blind community, he says he didn’t know what to do or how to find direction for resources and community. Hearing about Delta Area of the Blind by word-of-mouth, he reached out to them for support. The organization helped connect him with rehab services for the blind and are now also helping him pay for his education at Southeast Missouri State University, where he studies political science. Since first hearing about the organization, he has gotten more involved, and is now the vice president of the affiliate, as well as a board representative for Delta Area of the Blind to Missouri Council of the Blind, helping to make decisions for the entire state. He says the organization is a good support group.

“It’s nice to be surrounded by people going through or who have been through similar experiences. Being blind is definitely a different experience. It’s nice to have people you can actually relate to,” Ancell says. “It’s a great place to come to meet people in similar situations.”

Connecting, helping and advocating for people in the blind community is exactly what the Delta Area of the Blind is designed to do.

Darrel Vickers speaks during the Delta Area Blind's monthly meeting Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, in Sikeston.Kassi Jackson ~ Southeast Missourian

Delta Area of the Blind is one of 20 affiliates of the Missouri Council of the Blind. Organized in 1956, the Missouri Council of the Blind is the state’s largest consumer-based assistance organization. Other local chapters include River City Workers of the Blind in Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missouri United Blind Club in Poplar Bluff.

Each local group strives to help improve the life of people with visual impairments, often providing small adaptive equipment, such as money identifiers or color identifiers, to people who need them. Last year, the Delta Area of the Blind donated 37 pairs of eyeglasses to the Lion’s Club to distribute to local school children. These affiliates also work to provide scholarships to blind or visually impaired students who wish to attend college or vocational training.

Wanda Matlock guides the Delta Area Blind's monthly meeting Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, in Sikeston.KASSI JACKSON ~ kjackson@semissourian.com

The club meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at Concordia Lutheran Church in Sikeston, Missouri, with the purpose of improving the quality of life for people who are visually impaired. They often go out to eat together, attend United Way fundraising events, and each summer go to camp at Cobblestone Lodge in Steelville, Missouri. They send an education and advocacy representative to the capitol in Jefferson City each year to advocate for bills benefiting the blind and visually impaired; this year, an advocate will make the trip March 13. They also attend the Missouri Council of the Blind Annual Convention, held each October. To belong to this group, members don’t need to be visually impaired or blind; the only requirement is to want to support people with visual impairments.

“In fact, 49 percent of our members are seeing,” president Wanda Matlock says.

Matlock is totally blind, but it wasn’t always that way. A degenerative disease caused increased visual impairment for her over time. In her youth, Matlock had enough vision to do most activities, including driving a car. One of her sons inherited the same vision impairment affecting Matlock, so helping people with visual impairments is something she feels compelled to do.

She does this beyond the organization, as well: she often speaks for organizations about her journey of being sighted until age 33 and how she lives now with blindness. She serves as vice president on the Independent Living Center board. She also connects people with resources that can help them live successfully with vision impairment and blindness.

In addition to all of this, she administers sensitivity training, training therapists and assisted living staff to work with people who are blind. She has helped people who are visually impaired with mobility and cane training, as well as bringing in tools such as Braille bingo cards and talking keychains that tell the time, to help people live their lives enjoyably and efficiently.

Matlock says she is proud of their affiliate: for the past three years, they have won first place in raising the most funds in Missouri, even though their 17-member affiliate is one of the smaller ones in the state. This enabled them to give away three $1,000 scholarships for the 2018-2019 school year to students working to earn their education.

Mary Long, from Portageville, Missouri, and a student at Three Rivers College in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, is studying to become a math teacher, a career she can continue to work in even if she becomes completely blind. She sees with glasses now, but has a progressive eye disease that will worsen over time. She received the Lola B. Garner Scholarship from the Delta Area of the Blind to help with school costs for this school year.

“The money from the Delta Area of the Blind really has been helpful,” Long says. “I know as I get older, there will be more and more challenges, and getting an education in something I can do even fully blind is really important to me.”

Delta Area Blind helps make this, and more, possible.

---

__Interested in being part of the Delta Area of the Blind or one of its affiliates?__

-Delta Area of the Blind meets at 10:30 a.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month at Concordia Lutheran Church in Sikeston, Missouri.

-River City Workers of the Blind meets at 9:15 a.m. the second Thursday of each month at the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

-The Southeast Missouri United Blind Club meets at noon on the third Thursday of each month in the Snider room in the South Tower Building in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

To support your local chapter, consider attending a monthly meeting or participating in the White Cane Walk on Oct. 13 at Malone Park in Sikeston, Missouri. This day promotes awareness of the meaning of the white cane and the need to exercise special care for people who carry it.