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HISTORY |
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SHARE THE VISION began in 1995 with the simple goal of providing a community of support and a ray of hope to those dealing with the reality of vision loss. That’s when the first support group, not yet known as SHARE THE VISION, began at the Upper Arlington Senior Center. It was a labor of love, one that took nearly a year before reaching fruition. Sally Harris, now executive director of SHARE THE VISION, started the support group. The group started with about 10 participants, and through a combination of programming including arts and crafts and guest speakers, has grown to nearly 50 members. After an initial contact that fell through, a second support group was started at First Community Village in the Grandview area in 1997. This group was never big, consistently retaining 5-10 regular participants, and was suspended last year due to lack of involvement. This group may be revived in the future if there appears to be renewed interest. Since then many groups have been started: Westerville, Reynoldsburg, East Side Church, Marion, Portsmouth, Friendship Village, the Forum and more. 1997 turned out to be a pivotal year in the history of SHARE THE VISION. The first Vision Fair was held in the atrium of the Statehouse in downtown Columbus. Now an annual event, the vision fair allows consumers to visit with numerous vendors providing goods and services for the visually impaired of Central Ohio. This special event has grown from approximately 50 attendees at the first event to more then 300 attendees at the last event. It was also in 1997 that Sally found out about a program known as SHARE THE VISION at the Cleveland Sight Center. It didn’t take long for Sally to form an alliance with the Sight Center, and the woman in charge of the Cleveland SHARE THE VISION, Laura Keller. Laura began to mentor Sally on how to establish a mentoring and support system similar to what was in place in Cleveland. It became Sally’s goal to establish Share The Vision in Columbus, giving a branded identity and consistency to the support groups she had already begun to establish. 1997 also saw SHARE THE VISION enter into a partnership with Newsreel, an audiocassette magazine for the visually impaired based in Columbus. SHARE THE VISION began using Newsreel’s 501(c) 3, and used it to promote the 1997 Vision Fair sponsored by the Franklin County Office on Aging, at the Martin Janis Senior Center. In 1998, an alliance with Tom Tobin, then President of the American Council of the Blind of Ohio (ACBO) began around the same time the partnership with Newsreel began to dissolve. While Newsreel was not a strategic fit with SHARE THE VISION, Tom had an interest in working with seniors and many of ACBO members eventually became involved in SHARE THE VISION programming. It was at this time that Mike Grady, executive director of the Cleveland Sight Center, granted Sally and Tom permission to use the SHARE THE VISION name. The Sight Center let sole ownership of the SHARE THE VISION name go, and it then became an official program of ACBO in May 1999. The program was now funded by ACBO, who handled administration while Sally kept the program going. Shortly after the alliance with ACBO, Sally began training volunteers for the peer support program. There were four initial classes, each with 8-10 students per group. Volunteers learned how to become good mentors and peer supporters to those who were recently coming to terms with their own vision loss. The peer-to-peer support has become one of SHARE THE VISION’S most successful programs. SHARE THE VISION was functioning and growing under the auspice of ACBO until 2000, when Tom went out of office and a point of contention arose between Sally and ACBO regarding ownership of SHARE THE VISION. The new leadership of ACBO saw Share The Vision as a revenue vehicle, even though such a turn would divert the program from its mission of peer-to-peer and group support. It was at this time that Sally split from ACBO, taking sole ownership of SHARE THE VISION and having the program trademarked in 2001. Now an independent entity with its own 501(c) 3 not-for-profit recognition and functioning Board and bylaws, SHARE THE VISION has weathered a tumultuous past to reach a stable present and promising future. Under the guidance of Executive Director Sally Harris, SHARE THE VISION has added an Arts and Crafts group and Family Support group at the Vision Center, as well as the continued Upper Arlington support group, peer support and the Vision Fair. The future is indeed bright as many others around Greater Columbus begin to SHARE THE VISION.
FOOTNOTE: Harris had to discontinue the Peer Volunteer part of the program in 2004 along with skipping two years of the popular Low Vision Fair, due to funding and restructuring. The Fair will return in2007 (we are hoping) , but for now SHARE THE VISION is concentrating on support groups (where peer mentoring still exists) and fund raising in order to continue growing to meet the needs of this increasing population. SHARE THE VISION provides a bridge between eye care professionals and vision rehabilitation services. With the ever decreasing funding sources for programs it is not unrealistic that in the near future SHARE THE VISION is the only thing a person will have to give them HOPE (for regained independence, dignity and quality of life) as the waiting lines will become longer and longer for rehabilitation services. Along, with these efforts SHARE THE VISION thinks it is vitally important to do education and awareness with health care professionals and the general public. |
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Phone#: 614-538-0988 Email: sharethevision@columbus.rr.com
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