“First, I would like to say that I highly recommend CLB. I was very, very, very pleased with the services that I received from Annie Presley and Peter. I was recommended to COB by Tara Aziz from Seei Hope which was formally prevention of blindness society. Went to see her in January 2024 and one of the questions I asked her was to recommend someplace where I could get some white cane training.
She recommended CLB. I called a couple of months later to register with CLB and waited quite a while to get a call back. When I got a call back, I was scheduled for heart surgery so I delayed again and as soon as I was ready, I called CLB and very shortly they responded that Annie Presley would be coming to my house. I expected maybe one session of training and was very, very, very pleasantly surprised to receive many sessions in addition to other services that I didn’t even know CLB offered.
Let me start by saying that until May 2021, I was sighted and driving. Then I had botched cataract surgery where my eye was mutilated, and I needed a cornea transplant. Now my husband drives me wherever I want to go, and I go with him wherever he wants to go.
Since I am a dog trainer, I was never really going to places to use public transportation and haven’t used public transportation since 1964 when I lived in New York City. When Annie came to the house, she instructed me in white canine training and took me out to walk on the sidewalk and taught me how to cross streets and my husband drove us to the library and I learned to manipulate steps up and down. I learned what the beeping from the traffic lights meant and how to cross streets using them.
When Annie was at the house, I was asking questions about activities of daily living and she showed me how to safely cut things in the kitchen, and the value of bump dots on my microwave and many other items. She shared information on many websites that would be helpful in my daily living.
I also mentioned that I’m fairly computer literate but didn’t know much about the accessibility settings on my Apple products. She recommended Peter at CLB and arranged for me to meet with him which I did on several occasions. He was extremely helpful in setting up my Mac items for the use of my talking to my computer/iPad/phone and for the phone to respond verbally to my emails and texts and printed matter on the screen. Note that I do not use voiceover and not inclined to. One of the main advantages for me is that since I completed my mobility training with Annie, I am now eligible for CLB or Annie to recommend me for a guide dog if I am interested in that.
To sum up, I would highly recommend CLB.” – Joan, A CLB Consumer