Jack: Kathy Ireland is one of America's most successful self-made women.

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A supermodel turned super mogul.

She is the ambassador for the visually impaired and blind community.

In New York alone there are hundreds of thousands of people with blindness or low vision.

Many obstacles still remain.

To help, Kathy Arland has partnered with the Foreseeable Future Foundation, a leading national nonprofit that has raised thousands.

The organization was started by Griffin Pinkow, whose Perseverance through slowly losing his sight has inspired many.

Foreseeable future recently honored Kathy Ireland.

We are delighted to have both Catherine the -- Kathy Ireland and Griffin Pinkow join us.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Kathy: Thank you so much.

Griffin: Thank you so much for having me.

Jack: Griffin, let me start with you if I can because it is important to set the stage with what you are doing and what Kathy will be doing.

Briefly give us a sense of how you first discovered that you were losing your site and what you did about it immediately.

Griffin: Sure, Jack.

I learned about my loss of vision when I was a kid.

I made a travel baseball team when I moved to California.

I was in the outfield and one day the ball would be going one way and I would be running the other way and we realize there is something wrong with Griffin.

I could not see the ball in the sky and I could not track it.

We finally went back to my ophthalmologist in Princeton, New Jersey, where I am originally from and she said I think I see some pigment on the retina.

We said, what does that mean?

Four months later, I was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that my parents had to sit me down and say to their 11-year-old son, you will lose your vision, we do not know how much and when, but you will go blind and that will affect the rest of your life going forward.

At that time, I do not know if I really understood the severity of what was going on or it was just my mentality, how I have always been.

It did not really hit home that much because I thought, well, I will have to change some things that I do but I am still Griffin, I am still an 11, 12-year-old kid.

Processing that was challenging but once I understood it better, I realized it is nothing I can control so why would I have a pitty party for myself?

I just kept moving forward the best I could of that time.

That is how we found out about my visual impairment and that there was a challenge and that the rest of my life would be altered in some way.

Jack: I am going to come back to you in a moment and talk about that journey, especially through college and what you are doing now.

Kathy, let me ask you this question -- I mentioned in the introduction that you are an ambassador for the foundation.

You have had extraordinary success in your life in so many different dimensions and you have given so much of your time and energy and effort and resources to various causes and I am sure there are an awful lot reaching out.

Why did this organization become so significant to you that you said, OK, this is one of the ones I want to be connected with?

Kathy: Thank you so much for asking that question.

Griffin is my hero.

His story is so powerful.

My goodness, the strength and the courage and the fact that -- even at that tender young age of 11, the fact that this did not defeat him, that he is a man who is in solution mode and continues to be.

I just find that strength and joy so contagious.

What an amazing foundation that he has begun with Foreseeable Future Foundation and attracting incredible people who come alongside and support, including another hero.

This is something I believe in.

Throughout my life, I have had people I love dearly with visual impairments.

My dad and aunt both lived with macular degeneration.

I am one of the cofounders of a start up pre-k through college preparatory school and our Board of Directors hired a man, Dr. David Winter, who was a college professor in retirement and he was legally blind.

We hired him to be head of school.

Like Griffin, the man had such extraordinary vision.

I see that in this young leader of Foreseeable Future Foundation.

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It is absolutely extraordinary what he is doing for people around the world, who are dealing with any kind of vision loss.

The solutions that he brings, the encouragement, it is absolutely empowering.

Jack: Griffin, back to you for a second.

I will ask you about your journey, especially in college.

People should know you have run marathons, you are training at the highest level for tandem cycling.

Let's go back to the foundation.

And how it came about and why it came about and what you are hoping it can do for others.

Griffin: Right.

I was involved in some other organizations and they are fantastic and they are research-based.

The end goal is to find a cure, for myself and others dealing with visual impairments and blindness.

At a younger age, in those college years, I thought what is going on now that can help these people, young adults, kids in the community, an opportunity to do something now?

Between however all they are and when hopefully in the future they can actually have vision and have vision restored.

From those experiences, there was not much going on in that intermediate or if there is a cure in 10, 15, 20 years, that is fantastic but I want to help people now in their day-to-day life.

That was the catalyst from one to do something and then figure out, I know I want to help out the visually impaired and blind community because I am part of it, sports is near and dear to my heart, that is something we can grow upon.

Athletes do not just do their sport.

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There is so much you get out of it.

The team environment, the time management perspective, the interpersonal communication skills, accountability, leadership, everything you can get from being involved with sports and recreation.

Also, educating people and bringing awareness to visual impairments and blindness in what people can do, even dealing with a challenge.

That is how it started and we have been able to grow it over the past few years.

Now, we are expanding and seeing how we can help the individual as a whole.

Still focus with the sports and recreation component where refund individuals around the country to achieve athletic endeavors but also see what we can do on the recreation side.

We started a ranch program that we are doing in different states.

We started an advocacy curriculum.

We are doing a few other programs, like a literacy program in Massachusetts.

We are expanding and hoping to change the stigma and breakdown down the barriers between the sighted community and visually impaired.

We are all just people and it is OK to ask people if they need help or they don't.

That is where I see it growing.

Being able to expand and helping in those ways.

Jack: As you know, there can be very positive powers attached to celebrity, if they are utilized in the right way.

One of them certainly can be awareness.

If people recognize Kathy Ireland, they know what you have done and the successes you have added your life, the hope is they would pay attention to you.

In that regard and agreeing to become an ambassador for the foundation, what is your hope that you can do for those things that Griffin just mentioned, awareness, breaking down stigmas , making people more comfortable, what do you hope you can do?

Kathy: Oh my goodness, thank you.

My hope is to do whatever I can do to expand Griffin's great work.

This vision that he has that is already just changing lives in such powerful ways.

As a businessperson, as an entrepreneur, I see the entrepreneurial spirit in Griffin.

He is business savvy with how he is taking those skills, that brilliance he has and he is pouring it into this foundation that is having such an impact.

My hope is that we bring more awareness and that Foreseeable Future Foundation will scale and continue to scale to be all that it needs to be to reach people everywhere.

It is heartbreaking to recognize that there are people who are feeling isolated.

That they are feeling that because of what they are going through with their vision that they are not able to participate in a way that they would like to.

Griffin is a wonderful disruptor in just showing what people can do and making it possible.

That is powerful.

Jack: Griffin, I am going to give you the last word.

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I have a minute or so left.

In looking at your biography, I was struck by the fact that it was in college that you were struggling to get comfortable with this, yourself.

What message would you give to people who might be listening to our conversation here, the message you would give to others about the importance of them getting comfortable with their conditions of the can move forward?

Griffin: I think, Jack, what I would tell 11 or 12-year-old Griffin, or even Griffin in college, except it sooner because if I did that, it probably would have been easier for myself to say, "OK, this is something I cannot fully control, so I can control my health, attitude, change the perspective of my peers of what someone with visual impairment or blindness can do."

That is the big piece for the individual to be more comfortable.

If you can -- it is different person-to-person -- accept it and own it and think of it as particle you are.

It does not define you but it is particle you are.

Whether someone views that as good or bad, that is their opinion.

As soon as I was viewing it in that way, it gave me the opportunity to be open to sharing and telling people what my visual impairment was and saying I do need more help.

Everything opened up from there in that light, and giving people the opportunity to show that I was comfortable with it so it was easier for them to be comfortable and ask me questions, or ask if I needed help.

They would tell me, "Hey, I was on the train the other day and saw someone with a cane and I asked if they needed help."

I took them back to their house and it was two hours away from where I was going but I was aware of it and I to help them.

If I had to share one piece of advice or information, or for people to digest, I think that would be the message.

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