A book club gathered in Exeter on a late February afternoon to discuss their monthly pick.
The club's pick of the month was Frieda McFadden’s The Boyfriend, a thriller that hooked the club members’ attention from the start.
Some readers were shocked at the reveal of the murderer. Others appreciated the non-thriller subplot.
“I liked the love at first sight,” said Leatrice Streeter, to several nods of agreement.
The club gathers monthly at Northeast Sight Services. These readers listen to their books in audiobook form as part of the organization’s low vision book club. The club is just one of many services Northeast Sight offers to help clients adapt to lives with low or limited vision.
“The organization was founded 105 years ago,” said the organization’s then-president and CEO Sarah Peperno. “We were started and formed by a woman who was blind herself. The whole goal was to help blind people help themselves. We’ve really taken what that goal was, enhanced it over the years with modern technology and have really moved the agency forward.”
Peperno has since resigned as president and CEO of Northeast Sight Services to take the same post at United Way of Wyoming Valley. Her replacement has not yet been announced.
Resources and services at Northeast Sight
Northeast Sight Services offers its resources to individuals with low vision in Luzerne, Wyoming, Wayne, and Pike Counties.
An individual is considered to have low vision if they have an acuity of 20/70 in their worse seeing eye.
Low vision is a wide spectrum, from people with difficulty seeing to complete blindness.
“People oftentimes don't understand that it's a big spectrum to have low vision,” said Kristen Lilly, a vision rehab therapist at Northeast Sight Services. “Media sort of portrays it as either a person is fully sighted or completely blind, but the vast majority of clients we work with do have varying degrees of remaining vision.”
Low vision cannot be corrected with glasses, medicine or surgery.
“People, at that point, have to learn to adapt to the vision that they have,” Lilly said.
According to the CDC, the prevalence of vision loss and blindness increases by age group. Because of that prevalence, the organization’s clientele consists mostly of senior citizens.
Many elderly clients take advantage of Northeast Sight Services’ in-home assistance program.
“You know that you have a really reliable person that would be able to ensure that your mail is getting read and your applications are being filled out and and all of that is handled, so being your eyes in in those circumstances, which I think is a really great way to keep people in their homes, the people that wouldn't need to go to an assisted living type of situation, but just need a little bit of assistance because of their vision loss,” Peperno said.
Clients can also shop at the Vision Resource Center at the Exeter location. The center is stocked with technology and appliances to assist individuals with low vision.
Many of them are kitchen appliances to help people with low vision comfortably and safely continue cooking.
“There's a cutting board that has a white surface and a black surface, so that if you're cutting eggplant, you would use the white surface, and then if you were cutting an onion, you would use the black surface, so that contrast would really help someone to be able to do that safely,” Peperno said.
Although it serves mostly seniors, the organization also has programming for young people, such as the InSight Kids Club.
“Vision loss is not as common in children,” Peperno said. “They may never meet another child in their school that has vision loss. We do a family support group that meets quarterly or so, and have seen some families learn from each other as to how to navigate the school systems. Then we have a summer camp, so we bring the kids together for a couple weeks, and they do all kinds of activities they probably never have and probably wouldn't do if we weren't pushing them to do it.”
Some of the summer camp activities include rock climbing, horseback riding and kayaking, all with the intent to give the kids confidence to do activities they might have thought to be out of reach.
Adapting to a new lifestyle
As a vision rehab therapist, Lilly aims to help people adapt and relearn skills, especially if they recently started to lose their vision.
“I think people assume that with vision loss comes loss of independence,” she said. “That's not what we want to see. That's where we want to step in and try to keep people as independent as they want to be, despite what challenges they might be facing.”
She does plenty of home visits to teach clients new techniques and ways to make their lives easier.
“I'm going into someone's home and seeing what areas they're having any trouble with after their vision loss, if they're having any trouble using their appliances or cooking safely, or just doing everyday tasks that keep them independent,” Lilly said. “I can show them some different techniques or bring some adaptive products to help them out with things, and then I also can help them out with their technology, because there's so much you can do now with just your phone as a tool.”
Lilly runs the low vision book club. The group is tight-knit, as the same 10-12 members show up consistently to the monthly meetings. While the atmosphere is fun and familiar, she wants to make sure the group walks away having learned something as well.
The book club now features a baking aspect, in which Lilly calls on members at random to complete steps of a recipe. At the February meeting, the group made an apple dump cake.
“We also try to make it educational by showing them that they can continue to bake if that's something they enjoy to do,” she said. “They get involved in baking, and while it's in the oven, we discuss the book, and then bring it out and enjoy. It's a great way for people to get together, you know, talk about something they all enjoy, and build that support.”
A lifelong book lover, Lilly got involved with the book club to help others retain their beloved hobby.
“Audiobooks give them a chance to continue to enjoy reading, because oftentimes when I meet new people, new to vision loss, that's one of the things they're most upset about, is not being able to read anymore. It's great being able to turn them to these resources and say, well, there's library services, there's audio books. It might be in a different way, but oftentimes they find out that they really enjoy it,” she said.
Lilly encourages new or prospective clients to get involved with the book club or other programming offered by the organization.
The book club is free of charge, as audiobooks are borrowed from the library, and Northeast Sight Services offers transportation through LCTA’s shared ride program as needed.
'It's a great escape'
Phil Kubiak has been a book club member since 2018. He’s always been an avid reader, but his bilateral atrophy of the optic nerve, which causes the nerves to slowly die, made it difficult for him to continue reading. At first wary of audiobooks, he now loves them.
“I went to a tablet. I couldn't make the font big enough. I'd read for five minutes and fall asleep,” Kubiak said. “They got me into using the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Challenged, listening to books. I can listen to a book and do activities around the house. It's a great escape.”
While he’s typically the only man in the book club, he’s leaned into his peers’ recommendations.
“I'm reading different or listening to different things that I would not have expected to, so I love it,” he said.
Kubiak struggled with his diagnosis at first. His family encouraged him to get out and socialize.
He’s grateful for that push and the resources and connections he’s found at Northeast Sight Services.
“If somebody is experiencing difficulty with their vision, talk to your ophthalmologist, optometrist, and if they think you might qualify, contact Northeast Sight Services and see if there's something they can do to help you. [They’re a] great group of people,” he said.
