KEYSTONE BLIND ASSOCIATION
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Mission Statement
To empower, educate, and employ individuals with vision loss or other disabilities.
About This Cause
Established in 1947, Keystone Blind Association (KBA) has been serving blind and visually impaired individuals for over 70 years. KBA’s three-pronged mission is to empower, educate, and employ individuals with vision loss or other disabilities. Keystone Blind Association (KBA) provides a full array of services including Specialized Services, Rehabilitation Education, Orientation & Mobility, Prevention of Blindness, Assistive Technology Evaluation and Training, Children and Young Adult Services, as well as a Low Vision Clinic to individuals in Northwestern PA and Eastern Ohio. These support services and skills training enable individuals who are visually impaired to live their lives as independently as possible, to reduce isolation and to avoid institutionalization. An estimated 298,500 individuals in Pennsylvania are blind or visually impaired. Without the ability of sight, these people face many challenges, including living independently, employment, and using technology in a connected world. Vision loss often contributes to lessened independence and a decline in quality of life. As individuals lose their vision, they may also lose the ability to read letters and pay bills, to cook a meal, or to move safely around their homes. As the U.S. population ages and lives longer than ever before, the number of blind adults is increasing, creating an increased need for services that promote independence and self-sufficiency. Below is the wide range of programming that aligns with the mission of Keystone. Empower Keystone Blind Association’s empowerment programs are designed to improve the lives of blind and severely visually impaired individuals by enabling them to live their lives as independently as possible. These programs reduce isolation, improve coping skills, and prevent institutionalization. The services offered include: • Life Skills/Rehabilitation: KBA provides instruction in adaptive techniques that enable visually impaired and blind individuals to perform daily living tasks independently, including keeping time, identifying/organizing money, personal grooming, medical management, and other self-care skills. • Mobility: KBA teaches clients how to navigate through their environment safely, effectively, and, ultimately, independently. Staff specialists instruct clients how to use a long cane, support cane, guide dog, or walker. • Transportation: KBA provides transportation services to doctor’s offices, pharmacies, grocery stores, banking, and other locations, enabling individuals to live independently in their homes. • Communication: KBA assists clients in learning Braille, keyboarding, handwriting, and low vision techniques to maximize the use of remaining vision. • Assistive Technology: KBA offers assistive technology programs to help blind individuals learn how to navigate the Internet. KBA helps clients utilize visual supplementation technologies such as screen magnifier and screen reader programs, optical character recognition, scan and read programs/devices, speech recognition programs, accessible personal data assistant devices, video magnifier devices, Braille translation programs, Braille embosser devices, and accessible mobile device apps. • Support Groups: KBA facilitates peer support groups designed to improve communication skills, coping and problem-solving ability, self-esteem and self-awareness, and self-advocacy. • Children and Young Adult Programming: Programs for blind and visually impaired children and young adults provide opportunities for socialization while promoting personal growth and independence. • School-Based Services: Keystone Blind Association currently has contracts with school districts in Beaver, Mercer, and Mahoning (Ohio) Counties to provide orientation and mobility training to visually impaired and blind K-12 grade students. Educate KBA provides prevention of blindness services such as vision screenings and education at schools, senior centers, apartment buildings, social service agencies, and nursing homes. KBA’s in-house optometrist also operates a Low Vision Clinic, providing evaluations and referring patients to KBA’s rehabilitative therapists as needed. Employ Individuals with vision loss experience a rate of unemployment that far exceeds that of the general population. For many, lack of desire, motivation, or ability to work is not the problem; finding a safe and suitable work environment is. To combat this dilemma, KBA has created employment opportunities for blind, visually impaired, and disabled individuals. KBA and network partner, Keystone Vocational Services, partner with UniqueSource and National Industries for the Blind, which are set-aside programs that allow nonprofit agencies to provide products and services to the state of Pennsylvania and to the United States government as long as the product or service is commercially priced and is of acceptable quality. At least 75% of the direct labor hours must be provided by individuals who are either blind or disabled. KBA and its affiliates are the state’s biggest user of set-asides and the largest employer of the blind and disabled that pays above minimum wage. The Keystone network’s workforce provides multiple products and services to the Commonwealth and to the federal government. The current suite of employment opportunities includes: • Assembly of industrial-grade digging and striking tools, which are sold to the Department of Transportation in Pennsylvania and to the U.S. government • Assembly of safety helmets for sale to the U.S. government. KBA has shipped safety helmets throughout the United States and to locations where the U.S. government has a presence, including Germany, Japan, Italy, and to aircraft carriers like the USS George H.W. Bush. • Document destruction services (shredding) • Run a Federal mailroom and courier service • Mailing and labeling services • Facility management of interstate highway rest areas. • Operating photo driver’s license centers in seven counties • Manufacturing and sale of coffee to state government employees • Packaging and sale of toilet paper to Pennsylvania state prisons and governmental buildings