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SALT LAKE CITY — A man wearing a pair of goggles that impaired his vision and a woman wearing ski goggles with painted lenses made their way, white canes in hand, to a planter box about 15 feet away.
"This is hard," said Danielle Valentine, as she reached the tip of the cane in front of her during a simulation of vision impairment.
Once at the planter box, they returned to where they started and admitted it would have been more difficult if they were crossing a street.
"It takes a lot of confidence," Jonathan Gunderson said.
They were among the passers-by and volunteers who joined about 45 students from the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind on Main Street outside City Creek Center on Wednesday in honor of White Cane Safety Day.
In the simulation, Gunderson and Valentine were able to experience how the blind and visually impaired navigate the city in their daily life.
There were about 39,400 visually disabled people in Utah in 2012, according to data from the National Federation for the Blind. Those from the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind and their partners held the event to raise awareness of the blind and visually disabled in Utah.
This isn't a story about the poor, blind kids who are out trying to make a difference in the world. We're all about empowerment, not poor kids with a disability.
–Robbin Clark, coordinator for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind
If there is one thing those gathered Wednesday wanted to communicate, it was that although blind, these kids are fully functional.
"Just remember one thing: This isn't a story about the poor, blind kids who are out trying to make a difference in the world. We're all about empowerment, not poor kids with a disability," said Robbin Clark, expanded core curriculum coordinator for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind. "We're a Paralympic, kick your butt, independent kind of kid. … We're the, 'Oh, my gosh! Those are the most amazing kids — who happen to be blind — I've ever met in my life.'"
Passers-by and family members tried their hands at orientation mobility challenges, racing to fold up a white cane or donning goggles, like Valentine and Gunderson, to try walking while blind or visually impaired.
Volunteers typed names in Braille, served food, distributed Braille literacy information and showed off assisted technology. There were also appearances by some special guests.
"Of course, who could resist those guide dog puppies when they come?" Clark said.
Students and workers from the schools gathered into small groups and ventured through the downtown shopping center, walking through stores with the aim of awarding three retailers each on the basis of their orientation and mobility, customer service and visibility.
Visually impaired students from the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind said they are often asked if they know American Sign Language, are treated as if they have a learning disability, or at times are grabbed by the arm and forcefully helped across a street.
"It's a little scary because you don't know who it is," said Kendyl Floyd, a student at the school.
She and others added that they will usually ask for help if they need it. If someone wants to help, they ask that those people ask them for permission first.
She talked about the little things in the community that help the visually impaired: tactile strips, or yellow bumps on the ground, placed at the edges of sidewalks to help blind people know where the sidewalk ends; Braille bumps on TRAX doors; and chirps indicating when it is safe to cross city crosswalks. She has found the chirps to be unreliable, however, so she waits for a blocker car, or a car traveling in the same direction she is, before crossing streets.
Maddy Stafford, also a student, said she wished people would realize "that blind people can be successful and do anything that sighted people do."
The Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind run short-term programs along with a residential school in Ogden, campuses in Salt Lake and Orem, and schools throughout the state. They serve kids who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, visually impaired, or any combination of the above, and offer help from birth to post-high school transitions.
For more information or to volunteer with the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind, visit usdb.org/.
