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Pennsylvania non-profit agency in Williamsport is celebrating its 60-year anniversary. North Central Sight Services Inc. (NCSS) has launched its diamond anniversary, announcing an exciting year that observes the values of the agency-employment, prevention and independence.

Robert Garret, president and CEO, said that since 1910 the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind had been actively working to set up agencies that serviced the needs of people who are blind. In February 1957, they incorporated the Lycoming County Association for the Blind (LCAB). Members of the Harry Plankenhorn Foundation were involved and the local Lions Clubs 14G were too, in terms of putting together the Board of Directors for the fledging organization, Garrett said.

In those early days the agency would send out what Garrett described as visitors who would go to homes of people who were blind with talking book machines containing books on record from the Library of Congress. Other supports also were provided, such as transportation and limited employment opportunities at the 901 Memorial Avenue operation re-caning chairs and making door mats from recycled tires.

The agency had much-needed help from the community to remain solvent. We got a mortgage on the Memorial Avenue building and the Lions Club paid that off in about five years. It was actually quite amazing. We were also recipient of a rather large donation from the United Way to keep the organization going, Garrett said.

In 1974, the organization, under the leadership of Leroy Price, received a grant to expand services to the blind. We received additional seed money from the Federal Government to provide more extensive services for elderly people who were blind so they could stay independent living in their own home, Garrett said. At this time Price hired three people to provide services to those people and Garrett was one of them.

In 1982, Price retired and David Franklin took over and grew the industry. Knowing that more than 50 percent of blindness is preventable, Franklin also established and expanded the Prevention of Blindness Department at the agency.

The goal of prevention at NCSS is to promote public awareness about potential blinding eye diseases, prevention measures and the overall importance of eye health. They provide educational presentations and information about eye safety and eye health for all age groups. Their child and adult vision screenings are designed to detect symptoms of decreased vision, which may lead to serious eye diseases.

In 1986, Garrett was named the fourth executive director of the LCAB. In 1988 the agency changed its name to North Central Sight Services due to its expanding reach of services. Over the next few years, their service region further expanded to Centre and the Northern Tier counties, and the industry operations grew and prospered: they affiliated with the National Industries for the Blind; conducted a capital campaign in 1989 and raised just under $1 million to renovate the entire building and add an addition, increasing square footage by one third; and started producing tractor feed labels for the Federal Government that required hiring additional employees, followed by selling digital media and diskettes in 1990.

In 2005, NCSS bought the 63,000 square foot facility at 2121 Reach Road and, after renovations, moved in January 2007. NCSS has continued to see growth, but not without its challenges.

Like every business, weve had our ups and downs. We did give up Susquehanna and Potter counties about two years ago. It just was not fiscally feasible. We are now looking at other sources of revenue for our services, Garrett said.

As revenue from federal government contracts has curtailed, NCSS has had to diversify to achieve its mission. As the environment has changed, we are moving more toward services, doing a lot more document management and destruction and those kinds of things. The revenue is not near as large as it was when we were doing that huge amount of business with the federal government. So weve diversified, but in doing so its also brought some challenges, Garrett said.

The major challenge NCSS faces is one of increasing costs to provide services. As vision screening and accommodative equipment technology has advanced, its price tag also has seen an equivalent increase. The eSight program is one such technology. eSight Eyewear is electronic glasses that allow people with severe vision loss to actually see, and, thereby, make the most of their remaining vision and regain functionality.

We dedicated all of our fundraising efforts in 2016 toward the eSight mission to provide a device to help someone see a whole lot better on the job as they did before. Its not cheap. eSight is $15,000 for the unit, but it can provide a whole new way of seeing for people. We believe thats really important, Garrett said.

The diamond anniversary celebration was kicked off with the creation of the #NCSS60 hashtag on social media. Meagan Proffitt, marketing and public relations nanager, said its a good way to track the anniversary on social media as they go through the year. What were going to be doing is short videos that include interviews and comments from clients and community members about what NCSS means to not only people who work here but the people in the community, Poffitt said.

The year-long celebration has many events slated for 2017 to mark the milestone achievement. Dining in the Dark is an event to be held at LeJeune Chef Restaurant on the campus of Pennsylvania College of Technology on March 18. All guests are guided to their seats and served dinner completely blindfolded. This allows participants to understand in a very small way, and for a short period of time, what daily life can be like for someone who is blind or visually impaired.

Weve also added a second one this year. Well be hosting that on Feb. 25 at the Lock Haven Moose Lodge No. 100, Proffitt said.

Other scheduled events include the Lions Journey for Sight 5K Walk on May 7 and the Golf for Sight Tournament to be played on June 2 at the Wynding Brook Golf Club in Milton.

For more information or to help NCSS achieve its mission of providing employment, prevention and independence of people with blindness and visual impairment, you may donate directly through their website, http://www.ncsight.org/; call 866-320-2580; give to the United Way of Lycoming, Clinton or Bradford counties; or participate in the First Community Foundation Partnerships Raise the Region event on March 7-8.

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North Central Sight Services celebrates diamond anniversary - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

This entry was posted on February 19, 2017 at 6:45 am and is filed under Eye Sight & Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |