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Lighthouse For The Visually Impaired And Blind Gets New Leaders
Carl Orth/SUNCOAST NEWS
An overhead projector makes life easier for the blind, as demonstrated by Sylvia Stinson Perez, executive director of Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. She has the sight-robbing ailment retinitis pigmentosa.
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Published: August 23, 2008
PORT RICHEY - Sylvia Stinson Perez truly knows how her clients feel at Lighthouse for the Visually Impaired and Blind.
"I'm visually impaired myself and have been since birth," said Perez, who has been executive director of Lighthouse since July.
She is afflicted with a genetic disorder, retinitis pigmentosa. Each case is different, but usually starts with night blindness. Gradually eyesight degrades into tunnel vision with no peripheral vision. That tunnel then gets smaller and smaller. Some people go completely blind from the condition.
"Fortunately, I had parents who didn't let me ever get by with anything and just made me be normal," Perez said about her hometown upbringing in Monticello, northeast of Tallahassee. "I went to mainstream school. I had to participate in P.E., which is not fun when you can't see."
Then there is Dodge ball, which is "a horror, a horror," she joked.
"I actually participate in a lot of adaptive sports myself now." At one point she was on the World Blind Sailing Team for the United States.
Because of her visual impairment Perez has never driven a car.
"You become a problem solver," Perez said, especially with the help of modern gadgets like Braille-style tactile wristwatches, talking cell phones and various computer adapters.
She has spent more than 10 years in the field of vision rehabilitation. She was director of services for the Lighthouse in Miami before coming here. She has a master's degree in social work and is working toward a master's degree in visual disabilities from Florida State University.
The Pasco area appealed to her when she applied for the job.
"This seems to be a caring community," she said shortly after moving here with husband Roger. Armed with a red-tipped cane, she quickly mastered walking the route from her nearby home to the Lighthouse office on Galen Wilson Boulevard. That meant crossing Ridge Road, which was a bit tricky at first.
"I've been crossing it every day since," Perez said.
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