Hinkley Lions Club donated $5,400 to assist NIU’s Programs in Vision for new equipment.

Professor Gaylen Kapperman was present at one of the club’s zone meetings and caught the attention of club president, Al Haseman, and three other members.

Kapperman, coordinator of the Programs in Vision in the Department of Teaching and Learning, was invited to speak at the clubs February meeting, where he explained NIU’s curriculum for the vision impaired.

Touched by his speech, all 17 people at the meeting were in favor of donating money to help.

“Illinois is not providing sufficient funds for what we are trying to do,” Kapperman said. “NIU is not state supported, its state assisted, so we ask for donations.”

The $5,355 has already been spent on two needed Braille display devices for the Visual Disabilities Lab.

The Braille displays have three basic functions, to turn typed information into speech and read the text aloud, make images larger for those with low vision and print images out in Braille.

“We are going to train our students, who aspire to teach the visually impaired, how to use the equipment hands on so that they can train their future students,” Kapperman said.

Mathematics is an area that is traditionally difficult for visually impaired people to master because of the visual limitations of tools like calculators.

“We plan to partner up with NIU’s computer science professors to develop software to teach math while using the displays,” Kapperman said. “The software would change and definitely improve the way that math is taught to blind children.”

The Braille displays were purchased from both Optelec and Freedom Scientific.

“I really want people to realize that everything they donate to us, goes right back out to the public,” Haseman said. “Because of the publics help we’re able to help out NIU and people who need our help.”