One step at a time: Sunrise Lions Club working to improve learning experiences at the MSDB

The Sunrise Lions Club has completed phase one of its latest project with the Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind, and phase two is well on its way. 

The club recently repaired the playground area at the school. Different surfaces surround the playground called a tactile track. These surfaces include concrete, asphalt and a wood plank. They are used to help the students when learning how to use their canes in different areas.

“It’s for kids who are learning to work a cane, who are sightless,” said club member Jack Beckman. “It tells them about the different surfaces that they are going to encounter as they go around the world."

Beckman said when club members first met with the school, the boardwalk was in such bad shape the children couldn’t use it because they feared for students’ safety.

Sunrise partnered with United Materials to repair the surfaces at the park. Sunrise completed the boardwalk as United Materials laid the gravel and asphalt. The company even donated half the price.

In addition to the tactile track repairs, the roof on the church was repaired.

“There’s all kinds of these maintenance (issues) because that playground is now 30 years old,” said Beckman. “It is not covered under the state’s facilities.”

Therefore, the Sunrise Lions Club stepped in.

Next spring, they are working to add a brick section to the surfaced track surrounding the park. This gives students a new texture to work with as they further their skills.

The Sunrise Lion Club isn’t stopping here.

Around last January one of the club members became a member on the board of the Montana School of the Deaf and the Blind Foundation. This foundation specifically raises money for needs that are not funded by the state. One of the needs is specialized equipment.

“Some of the specialized equipment is funded for the school, but they don’t provide specialized equipment to every child that is randomly located around the state,” Beckman said.

The club have partnered again with MSDB to raise $300,000 to buy 100 Prodigi Connect 12s, which are portable, digital magnifier and tablets. It has an android platform that also allows the access to Google applications.

The magnifiers the students are using now cause prints to become blurry as they are magnified.

“These kids are using a substandard version of print because of the expenses,” said Beckman.

With the new devices, the students will be able to have larger magnification and read sentences instead of short lines. It’s also like a small laptop with a camera. They will be able to take a picture of what a teacher is writing on the board and have it on their screen to read it.

It also allows them to capture the image of the print and have it read to them.

This allows them to be able to study in real time.

"There are kids whose vision could be great in the morning and not as good as the afternoon," said MSDB teacher, Rutledge. "So by the afternoon, they're ready for a visual break and just want to listen to something."

Denise Rutledge and Dakota Randles, student at MSDB, showed an old device and compared it to the Prodigi Connect 12. 

In the past, they were using a CCTV.

"It will still magnify the words and allow the kids to manipulate the colors and make it bigger and smaller, but that was all it did, and it also weighs 15 pounds," said Rutledge. "Portable, yes, it can go, but when you think of a second-grader they aren't going to be able to chuck around  a 15-pound machine."

The Prodigi Connect 12 folds up or you can take the tablet out completely. It also weighs less than weight of the old device.

It has internet access and email.

"In a perfect world they can get their print copy from a teacher, put it under, enlarge it, type on it and then email it back to their teacher," Rutledge explained. "All in one."

Randles thinks every visually impaired student would benefit from the device because it's easier to read books, it changes contrast, has an audio option and conforms to what a student needs to see print better.

"Also, it's easy and portable to carry around instead of having to carry a big TV around with you," he laughed.

“We consider this life-changing,” said Beckman.

With there being 56 counties in Montana and the big issue of affordability, there is a need for the funding of these readers.

Beckman also shared his comparison of the older specialized equipment and the Prodigi Connect 12.

“We had a group of kids who were trying this reader for the first time,” said Beckman. “We put print under there…but while we weren’t noticing they put a pencil under there…then one of the kids got a coin out.”

The students never realized their pencils had writing on them and they finally saw the difference between different coins.

“They always thought the coins had the same things on both sides and that coins were exactly the same,” he further explained. “So, imagine now you get out a quarter and there are 50 different sides because of the states…but you never knew this.”

These readers could change the ability for these students to be more employable by allowing the kids to see what’s going around them as it's happening.

The Lions Clubs is now in the process of raising money to buy 100 Prodigi Connect 12s.

All 66 Lions Clubs in Montana agreed to take on the project to fund the needs for the new reader. The clubs are working on receiving a grant with Lions Club International. 

The maximum grant given by Lions Club International is $100,000, if it is given in early January. If the Lions Clubs of Montana and the foundation raise $100,000, Lions Club International will match it. However, this still leaves them short $100,000.

“If they don’t have the ability to see in real time, that really puts a hurdle in the road,” said Beckman. “Why would we not, as a society, get these kids what they need? … Wouldn’t we rather they live a productive life rather than a life (relying on) support?”

For more information on the project or how to donate, the Sunrise Lions Club meets every second and fourth Tuesday at Perkins at 6:30 a.m.