A history of Visual Aid Volunteers, Inc.

In the fall of 1960, a pilot program was approved by the Garland, Texas, School Board and the Texas Education Agency. The program's goal was to solve a problem that faced visually impaired children: Since the Texas public schools did not provide students with braille textbooks, the only alternative was to send students to the State School in Austin.
	The concept of the program was this: Afford the visually impaired children in the district the opportunity to remain at home with their families and attend their local schools. This meant finding a way to provide braille books to the students. And this would require the dedication and hard work of a core group of volunteers, which included the parents of some of those visually impaired students, as well as many civic groups and leaders within the community. Thus, Visual Aid Volunteers (VAV) was born.
This remarkable group learned to create braille books for all subjects, using the Perkins Braillwriter, learned textbook format rules, as well as how to create tactile graphics entirely by hand. None of these were easy tasks, but they were diligent in their pursuits. And, it paid off. Between 1960 and 1965, VAV provided more than 50% of the brailled textbooks in Texas.		Perkins Braillewriter
	Visual Aid Volunteers was originally supported solely by donations and contributions from individuals, civic clubs, and PTA groups and incorporated in 1965. Today, it continues to operate as a non-profit organization in downtown Garland, though no longer all-volunteer. The current staff of ten is assisted by a faithful group of more than 60 volunteers.
Through the years, the demand for braille materials has increased dramatically. As part of the response to this need, the Texas Legislature mandated that textbook publishers provide source files to braille producers in an effort to speed up production while maintaining quality. VAV successfully upgraded their equipment and improved their skills to meet this challenge head on. The technological advances didn't stop there. Today, VAV continues to use the latest braille-related technology and equipment to prepare braille materials as accurately and expeditiously as possible.
	More than 40 years have come and gone since that pilot program began; and because of Visual Aid Volunteers, the visually impaired students in Texas and beyond have had educational opportunities that otherwise might have been missed. VAV has given innumerable hours, first to Garland students, then to those in Texas, and eventually across the nation, in order to provide them with the opportunity to live at home, attend public school and study any subject of their choosing.
We look forward to the next 40 years with great anticipation as we continue our efforts in the areas of K-12 and college education, and look to expand our services in the years to come.