Through a generous donation from Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, we have received two gently used fourteen-passenger shuttle buses that will make it even easier to transport staff and clients on outings.
Thank you to Guide Dogs and their CEO, Paul Lopez, who found a way to help a sister blindness agency!
Many thanks to members of the Greater Kiwanis of Napa, who helped us restore our upper camp fire circle in early June.
We still have spaces available in our youth sessions:
Kids Session (Kids 3rd through 8th grade): July 15 – July 21 
Teen Session (Kids 9th through 12th grade): July 28 – Aug 3
Our youth sessions are more popular than ever and there’s still room for your child or teen. Remember, for blind or visually-impaired kids under the age of 18 the LightHouse provides an entire session for only a $60 registration fee.
For more information or to guarantee a spot for your child please visit the Enchanted Hills Camp 2013 page on our website. For questions please call us at 415-694-7310 or email us at EHC@old.lighthouse-sf.org.
When: Starting Monday June 10 and ending June 14, the Van Ness Avenue sidewalk in front of 100 Van Ness (the old AAA building) will be closed between 6:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. This closure will continue one week each month through September. The LightHouse will post the dates as they are announced.
Where: 100 Van Ness – The east side of Van Ness (same side of the LightHouse) between Fell and Hayes Streets.
Why: Plant Construction Company will be performing building demolition. For everyone’s safety periodic closures will happen between Fell and Hayes on Van Ness.
Safety: Flag Persons will be stationed on the southeast corner of Fell and Van Ness to prevent street crossing to closed sidewalk. For blind and low vision pedestrians coming from Van Ness Muni Station and walking north towards the LightHouse, Flag Persons will provide human guide assistance for those who want it. Flag persons will guide you west across Van Ness, north across Fell and Hayes and then east across Van Ness.
Il Posto Trattoria, a small Italian restaurant in North Napa has invited Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind to take part in Dine and Donate. Bring in this flyer and 20% of your tab will be donated to Enchanted Hills. Enjoy some delectable homemade pasta, pizza and other authentic Italian cuisine, and support EHC!
Where:Il Posto Trattoria at 4211 Solano Ave., Napa, CA 94558
When: Monday, June 24
Lunch is served from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.,
Dinner is served from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Phone: 707-251-8600
Website: http://ilpostonapa.com/
Dappled light shines between the line of olive trees as you wind down the driveway. Open sunshine greets you by the pond alive with frogs and a pair of geese and their gosling. Deeper shade makes it cool and quiet under the majestic Redwoods. The qualities of light at Enchanted Hills Retreat explain the name. Why don’t you bring together a group of friends, family, or colleagues in the beauty and quiet of Enchanted Hills?
Just 8 miles from downtown Napa, and in the heart of one of the most prestigious appellations of Napa wine country, Enchanted Hills is a great location to get away from it all, without being far away. We’ve got comfortable cabins, spacious meeting rooms, free Wi-Fi and home-style meals. Everything you need to make your workshop, wedding or reunion superlative. And the proceeds from renting Enchanted Hills are returned to camp, to make Enchanted Hills a transformative, unparalleled opportunity for blind and low vision kids to explore, create and learn. Experience the magic of Enchanted Hills! To reserve your space for 20 to 120 or get more information, call 415-694-7310 or go to www.enchantedhillsretreat.com.
Last month Enchanted Hills Camp hosted an intensive three-day/two-night retreat for fifteen primarily Spanish speaking Napa Valley families with blind or low-vision, multi-disabled youngsters. It was the first time the LightHouse specifically sought to have a camp session at Enchanted Hills for families living only in Napa County. The result: incredible community building and support.
The retreat was made possible through a generous grant from the Napa Valley Community Foundation. The LightHouse collaborated with the Napa Valley Unified School District, Parents CAN (a Napa-based family support organization) and Blind Babies Foundation to offer recreation such as hiking, arts and crafts and sports for the children while at the same time offering workshops for their parents.
It was our goal to make these campers feel comfortable while providing information, resources and the chance to bond in the “enchanted” setting of our beautiful camp. It was life-changing for these kids and their parents who live with little connection or support. Almost none of them had ever met a parent of a blind child before, and the community-building was palpable.
LightHouse volunteers and staff, many of whom are bilingual, guided the children as they played and translated presentations for parents into Spanish. Among a number of offerings, San Francisco State Special Education Professor Amanda Lueck talked about how to develop individual education plans (IEP) for the children; Adaptations Store Manager Isabel Arreola made a presentation on adaptive aids; we formed a peer support group for parents to share their stories about raising children with disabilities and Camp Director Tony Fletcher lead a walking tour that focused on the camp’s long history.
While the parents attended the workshops, the children enjoyed activities such as boating on the lake, bowling, archery, horseshoes and arts and crafts. Later parents joined their children for swim time at the Enchanted Hills pool, a demonstration of solar cooking and nature hikes.
Feedback from the families was extremely positive and as the session concluded there were tears, hugs and joy at the connections made. One of the fathers was heard to say, “I’ve been harvesting grapes for forty years, in the vineyards right around the camp. All that time I’ve focused only on my family’s income and making money. I never realized how close I was and how profoundly I would be moved by this beautiful place.”
Tony Fletcher said, “Our overarching goal was to connect families with each other and to services that they might not be aware of, and to also let them see how Enchanted Hills can be an ongoing resource. It was very humbling to be around so many grateful recipients of our services. I felt proud to be part of a LightHouse team that offered this wonderful opportunity for these families.”
Did you know that you can specify a planned gift such as a bequest to a particular LightHouse program, such as Enchanted Hills Camp? The LightHouse is able to operate our extraordinary camp in large part because of people like you who have remembered the camp in their will or estate planning. And we’re excited about what magic will be happening in the next 63 years, as well as in the next 63 days.
The 2013 camp season has already begun and this year we’ve extended the camp season to fit in even more transformative sessions of camp for the blind and visually impaired. We launched the season with a group of blind high school students at our Transition Summit, where they learned key leadership skills which will help them through college and advance in their careers.
Then we hosted a session of Chemistry Camp where blind teenagers came to learn hands-on chemistry. Chemistry Camp is led by Hoby Wedler, a blind chemist who was honored by President Obama last year for his accomplishments in science. KQED did a radio piece on the camp entitled, Chemistry by Smell. You can listen to it here.
Hoby thinks science is an ideal career path for the visually impaired. As he says, “No one can see an atom. You have to conceive of an atom.”
And we are looking forward to the remainder of the camp season, with three more family camps, youth camp, teen camp, alumni session (where many of the adult campers attended as children over 50 years ago!) and camp for those with special needs. We are especially excited about the return of the Deaf-Blind session in August, providing a bonding and relaxing retreat for a population that rarely gets a chance to swim, dance and hang around the campfire as a community.
You can be instrumental in making the magic of Enchanted Hills Camp happen, not just for this summer, but for magic summers deep into the 21st Century. A planned gift for Enchanted Hills helps us have the financial stability to provide unparalleled learning, adventure and relaxation for blind and low vision people of all ages. Enchanted Hills changes lives. At camp people meet mentors, they make friends, sometimes they find love. Won’t you take a moment to make a planned gift to Enchanted Hills Camp to sustain EHC for years to come?
We can help. If you need simple ways to modify your will, or to designate Enchanted Hills Camp for your later giving, we can connect you with other friends of the camp, such as estate attorneys, who have helped us for years. And if you already have designated Enchanted Hills in your will or IRA, we’d love to know about it. For more information or to notify us of your intentions, contact Jennifer at 415-694-7333 or jsachs@old.lighthouse-sf.org.
Last month LightHouse and San Francisco Parks and Recreation’s Project Insight held a gathering for blind and low-vision youth and their families at Golden Gate Park. Here new families got to mingle with families already a part of our network. The weather was beautiful and kids and adults alike enjoyed activities such as hand painting and competitions such as the one where you race while balancing a cup of water on your head (predictably, this turned into a fantastic water fight). And we congratulate Shahzar Qureshi and runner-up Melissa Hadiyanto, winners of the freeze dance competition.
LightHouse staffers Molly Irish and John cooked hamburgers and hotdogs for the crowd while Project Insight’s (Big) Ben Oude Kamphuis and his team contributed a huge salad made of organic vegetables grown in the Project Insight garden. And finally, the teenage contingent, most of them friends from Enchanted Hills Camp, took advantage of the moment to catch up with each other long after the rest of their families were worn out.
Did you miss out? Be sure to join us next time. Check the LightHouse website calendar regularly for upcoming events like this, or sign up for Beth Berenson’s weekly Community Services Activities and Events List at info@old.lighthouse-sf.org A hearty thank you to all who attended! 
In June the LightHouse of the North Coast will join a panel of local vision resource providers.
When: Saturday, June 8 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Where: Humboldt County Main Library, 1313 Third Street, Eureka, next to the Ingomar Club
Ali O. Lee, LightHouse Vision Rehabilitation Services Coordinator, will talk about LightHouse services, local resources and how the LightHouse continues to work with the library to increase access to information. Frances Rapin, who is to be the 2013 recipient of the Friends of the Library’s Community Service Award, will speak about how, with the help of LightHouse’s Vision Rehabilitation Services, her life has changed as her vision has changed. Librarian Rachael Harwood will discuss how people with low vision or blindness can continue to access library services. For more information, call the Humboldt County Main Library reference desk at 707-269-1905.
Are you interested in the services LightHouse of the North Coast can provide? Contact us at 707-268-5646, TTY: 707-268-5655.
