Hey, wow, I was paging through the annual report of my local chapter of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, and halfway back, before the thank-you boards for big-bucks contributors and the pictures from the annual fundraiser, I read that I’ve finally made my 1000 hours of service milestone. That puts me on the list of Golden Reels, which is a bit anachronistic since we’ve been all-digital for years now.
The most interesting part of each annual report is the profiles of our borrowers, high school and college students mostly, who need an audio assist with their reading. Dyslexic students predominate (this year a beauty queen and a recent masters degree recipient), along with blind users. But the standout is a now-practicing lawyer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis while an undergraduate. The MS caused intermittent vision loss in one eye; the loss was unpredictable and untreatable at the time. RFB&D readers got her through Yale Law School. So, a hat tip to my friend from Texas David G. and to all the other volunteers out there crunching through the law texts.