|
The Lighthouse of Houston is a private, non-profit education and service center dedicated to assisting blind and visually impaired people in the Houston, Texas metropolitan area to live independently. The Lighthouse serves approximately 9,000 people each year and is a member agency of the United Way of Greater Houston. The primary goal of The Lighthouse of Houston is direct service to the individual. This includes not only providing direct service, but a continual commitment to improving the quality and relevance of this service. All other organizational activities and functions are in support of this primary focus and have as their goal the development and dissemination of better service designs and interventions in order to enhance the optimal functioning of the individual. ==History== In 1939, Nellie Mae Wimberly, a legally blind teacher who ran a home education program for blind people in Houston, joined with James G. Donovan, a prominent attorney, to secure funding and support for a program that would help blind people become more productive and independent. Wimberly, Donovan and E. M. Biggers formed the Harris County Association for the Blind – chartered by the State of Texas as a private, nonprofit organization to provide educational and vocational opportunities for blind and visually impaired people in Harris County, Texas. Wimberly served without pay as the organization's first executive director, and Donovan became president of the first Board of Directors. That same year, a textile department was opened with sewing machines donated by the Houston Area Lions Clubs. With no permanent headquarters of its own, the Lighthouse moved from place to place. In the 1940s, the Lighthouse began producing pot holders, pillow cases, aprons, rag dolls, brooms, mops, woven rugs and bath mats. It also began caning chairs. Its products were available at a concession stand in the lobby of Houston's City Hall. It was during this period that the Lighthouse became a United Way agency. In the 1950s, the Lighthouse hired its first paid executive director, Geraldine Rougagnac, and the Lighthouse was able to move into a newly built facility at 3530 West Dallas, which today houses the agency's Industrial Division. At that time, the building housed a training center, home economics room, cafeteria, occupational therapy, a pre-school nursery, vending stand and the workshop. The Lighthouse began selling its products door-to-door, and trained and certified volunteer braillists, recruited from Temple Emanu El Sisterhood and Temple Beth Israel, began transcribing reading materials for the blind. The 1960s saw the expansion of the warehouse and the sub-contract department. The Lighthouse bought five Perkins Braille-writers and contracted with the Texas Education Agency Textbook Division to transcribe textbooks for blind children in public schools. It negotiated a long-term lease with the city of Houston for the land at 3602 West Dallas and built a new children's building, library and gym there. It discontinued door-to-door sales, began training in medical transcription and clerical skills, and expanded its facility to include a Rehabilitation Center. The Lighthouse continued to expand during the decade of the 1970s, building a second floor wing of the Rehabilitation Center and opening the Lighthouse Library. The Lighthouse Industrial Division began manufacturing pine oil disinfectant and cleaner detergent, which it sells to the federal government under the Javits–Wagner–O'Day Act. Rehabilitative services expanded to include orientation and mobility, residential independent living skills training, recreation and a sheltered workshop operating under a 50 percent training certificate issued by the Department of Labor. With a grant from the Texas Commission for the Blind, the Lighthouse developed an Employment Skills Development Program. In 1980 the executive director position was changed to president, with Gibson M. DuTerroil coming on board in that role. The 1980s were a decade of tremendous growth for the Lighthouse. Many new programs focused on children and teenagers, including a cooperative Early Intervention Program for children ages birth to three in conjunction with the Spring Branch Independent School District, a Summer Camp for children, a Career Day for blind and visually impaired high school students, a summer work experience program, a Saturday Educational Enrichment Program, an after-school program, and the first Beeping Easter Egg Hunt. The Lighthouse opened a Multi-Care Center for the elderly and a Career Center for the Visually Impaired, with medical-clerical training, computer programming, employment skills development and a job club. It also began offering Adult Basic Education and GED programs, plus pre-vocational and residential training for deaf-blind young people and an ESL program. The Lighthouse also added two Living Centers for blind and other handicapped individuals, a Low Vision Clinic, and the Lighthouse store, featuring low vision aids and devices. In 1988, the Community Services Center opened at 3602 West Dallas. In the 1990s, the Lighthouse opened a Technology Training Unit and began providing medical transcription services for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and later PBX switchboard services for the VA Hospital in Houston. During this decade, the agency began a cooperative special education program with the Houston Independent School District and Customer Service Representative Training with the Houston Community College System-College Without Walls. It opened the Community Services Center-Southwest and a second Multi-Care Center, and began a Diabetic Education Program, licensed by the State of Texas as a home healthcare provider. The Industrial Division expanded its line of products and entered into an arrangement with the S.C. Johnson Corporation to produce and sell floor care products to the federal government – the first such co-branding arrangement permitted by the President's Committee. Medical transcription contracts expanded, and the Lighthouse began providing switchboard operators for the Houston Chronicle and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach, California, and mail processing services for the Internal Revenue Service in Houston and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. On November 30, 2000, the Lighthouse's 61st anniversary, the Center for Education and Adaptive Technology opened. The new millennium saw even more advances, as the Lighthouse began working with blinded veterans from the Gulf War, providing services to more than 400 servicemen in the decade that followed. As the nation's premier provider of medical transcription training for the visually impaired, the agency attracted students from six states to its new online medical transcription training program. In 2005, Lighthouse President Gibson DuTerroil was elected chairman of the board of TIBH, a private, nonprofit corporation that helps provide employment for Texans with blindness and other disabilities. Three years later, TIBH named an annual award for an outstanding worker with a disability for Artie Lee Hinds, former chair of the Lighthouse Board of Directors. In October 2008, the Lighthouse hosted the Annual Training Conference sponsored by National Industries for the Blind and the National Association for the Employment of People Who Are Blind. Lighthouse Certified Medical Transcriptionist Jennifer Parrish was named Employee of the Year by the NIB.〔Vargas, Melissa. (" Lighthouse's top employee gets her day," ) Houston Chronicle, December 30, 2009〕 During this period, the Lighthouse Diabetes Education Services Program was recognized by the American Diabetes Association for Quality Self-Management Education; three acres of land in Cut and Shoot, Texas, were donated to store the detergent produced by its Industrial Division; an innovative training was held on the use of GPS with guide dogs;〔Latson, Jennifer. (" Visually-impaired on right path with GPS," ) Houston Chronicle, January 22, 2009〕 and Reflections – Houston's first art show and reception featuring an exhibit of watercolors by artists who were blind or visually impaired – received citywide attention.〔Britt, Douglas. ("Blind artists share their visions," ) Houston Chronicle, June 18, 2009〕 The event was underwritten by the Houston Delta Gamma Foundation. In 2010, the Lighthouse received the Employment Retention/Growth/Upward Mobility Award – presented annually by NIB to agencies who demonstrate a "commitment to increase employment and economic opportunities for people who are blind." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Lighthouse of Houston」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|