What the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults Is
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults is a service agency
which specializes in providing to blind people help which is not readily
available to them from government programs or other existing service systems.
The services of the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
are planned especially to meet the needs of blind children, the elderly
blind, and the deaf-blind. The American Action Fund for Blind Children
and Adults has offices in Baltimore, Maryland, and Tarzana, California,
and volunteer workers throughout the country. The Tarzana office houses
our free lending library of Braille and Twin Vision® books for blind
children. Books are sent postage free to borrowers wherever they live.
We publish and distribute to deaf-blind persons a free weekly newspaper
in Braille. The Action Fund also distributes free Braille calendars to
blind and deaf-blind people on a nationwide basis. A very large number
of volunteers help the Action Fund provide its services.
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults has its headquarters
in Baltimore, Maryland, at the National Center for the Blind. The National
Center for the Blind was established in 1978 and has come to be the focal
point of a great deal of the work being done to assist blind people throughout
the country. The Action Fund carries on a widespread campaign of public
education, administers a program of scholarships and financial and other
specialized assistance to individual blind persons, conducts seminars
about blindness, and provides information to senior citizens to help them
deal with vision loss in their later years.
A renovated, turn-of-the-century, manufacturing facility comprising a
square city block houses the National Center for the Blind, giving it
ample space for handling the many activities relating to blindness which
occur there. The International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind
is also located at the National Center for the Blind. The American Action
Fund assisted in establishing and equipping the International
Braille and Technology Center for the Blind so that all blind individuals,
family members, employers, or other interested individuals can have the
opportunity to learn about and evaluate the various kinds of computer-access
devices which are now available to the blind.
Many of you may have known us for years as the American Brotherhood for
the Blind. The American Brotherhood for the Blind was established in 1919
by a member of the Theosophical Society to give help to the blind. The
new organization took its name from the Society's belief in the universal
brotherhood of all mankind, and since 1919 the organization has held fast
to its belief in the brotherhood of all—that is, that its services
are to be provided to all without regard to race, sex, creed, or national
origin. Although the American Brotherhood's basic beliefs have not changed
in the seventy plus years since 1919, The American language has. Today,
the word "Brotherhood" has come to have in some people's minds
insensitive and sexist overtones of exclusion—the very opposite of
the founder's original intent of universal service to all, which he wished
to convey by choosing the name American Brotherhood for the Blind.
The Board of Directors of the American Brotherhood for the Blind decided
during 1990 to initiate action to restore the original descriptive connotation
of the organization's name by adopting the name, “American Action
Fund for Blind Children and Adults” as its federally registered operating
name, or trademark, while still retaining the trademark of American Brotherhood
for the Blind. The process is under way of associating the services of
the American Brotherhood for the Blind with its modernized operating name,
American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults—a name which reflects
the language and cultural notions of the times in which we live while
at the same time preserving the traditional service values envisioned
by the organization's founders more than seventy years ago.
All of the board members of the American Action Fund for Blind Children
and Adults are blind and receive no financial compensation for their services.
The members of the Board have succeeded in a variety of occupations and
activities and have learned to deal with blindness and its inconveniences.
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