(upbeat music) - We're now joined by Cynthia Bryant, who's the Chair of the Board of Trustees of a terrific organization called The Seeing Eye.

Cynthia, great to have you with us.

- It's great to be here.

Thank you.

- You guys.

Cynthia, we're gonna put up the website for The Seeing Eye organization.

Tell everyone what it is.

I know it's 95 years young.

It's a not-for-profit, but talk about it, please.

- Yes, The Seeing Eye is a non-for-profit organization.

We're located in Morristown, New Jersey, and as you mentioned, this year is our 95th anniversary.

We were founded on January 29th, 1929.

And there was a man by the name of Morris Frank, who was blind and he wanted to learn about seeing eye dogs, and he saw an article about a woman by the name of Dorothy Harrison Eustis in Switzerland, and went over there, trained, brought the dog back, and really the rest is history.

We're in Morristown and we're 95 years strong.

- Cynthia, talk about your journey to becoming the Chair of the Board, and it's historic and important for a lot of reasons.

Please.

- I am a person with retinitis pigmentosa and it's deterioration of the retina, and as my vision deteriorated, I was working here in Washington, D.C. and needed to continue as an attorney navigating the city.

And I used a cane, but I wanted a little bit of a different type of traveling ability.

And a friend of mine told me about The Seeing Eye and dogs, and I was afraid of dogs.

As a child, a German shepherd came out and he almost got me, but did not.

So I was not very happy about dogs, but I really wanted to give it a try.

Went to The Seeing Eye, and really the rest is history.

I trained and here I am.

- You know, you told our producers that we are not doing a good enough job in terms of public policy and in terms of public awareness.

What are we not doing that we should be doing, Cynthia, as it relates to helping those who are visually impaired and utilizing seeing eye dogs in a more impactful and effective way, please.

- Yeah.

Like I said, we go and we trained and there's a relationship that's formed, a bond between the dog and myself.

When I first go, we're foreign to each other.

So she eventually becomes devoted to me and I trust her and we go out into the world to navigate.

So if you go to the office, you walk out the door and you go to the office, a child goes to school.

When I go out to go to the office, I always have my dog with me.

- Excuse me, your dog's name is Summer?

- Summer, yes.

Yeah.

- Go ahead.

- I always have Summer with me.

And something as simple as when I go to go on the subway and I go to the top of the stairs and I grab the rail to go down, people don't realize that Summer has guided me there.

She stopped at the top of the stairs for me to tap my foot and she's also pointed over towards the rail for me to take it.

This is all seamless and it goes on, you know, daily in all sorts of things that I do.

So it's critical for people to understand that there's a connection.

I need her to travel.

And that extends to going into a grocery store, going into a restaurant.

Even when you see her sitting down and she's lying still, when she's in harness she and I are still in communication, and that's what the public needs to know, is I need her and, you know, she is devoted to me to help me out.

- But along those lines, Cynthia, are there any public policy changes?

And by the way, I wanna be clear on this, Governor Murphy designated the seeing eye dog as the state dog of New Jersey in January, 2020.

I wanna point that out.

- Yes.

- So the Murphy administration has been engaged to some degree, but is there anything government officials could and should be doing to help improve this situation for people who are visually impaired?

Please.

- Well, you know, we have regulations in place.

We have the ADA, we have the Fair Housing Act.

- The ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Ada.

- Correct.

- What does it say about seeing eye dogs?

- Well, that we're protected.

With a seeing eye dog, if we're out in public, legally we're able to have access to all public places.

So that said, I think the key point is not just the legislation that's in place, but also helping to educate the public.

We can put it on the books, but we need to spend that time educating the public so that they know these things.

Likewise, on air travel, there are regulations that I can travel with my service dog, but it doesn't mean that people know all of these things.

That's the piece that seems to be missing here.

So on the books is one thing, but educating the public is where we need to be now.

- We have two dogs, Champ and Pete, and they are pets.

Summer is way more than a, quote, pet for you.

Fair?

- It is fair, yeah.

What people need to understand is that she and I have a bond that's so much greater than a pet.

When I go out the door, I need her.

I need her to guide me.

I need her to work with me.

At all times her eyes are on me.

Her eyes are on me right now as I'm talking to you.

I can feel that she's watching for that next move, even though she's just lying over there and resting now.

There is a constant relationship that is very deep and it's a relationship that the school wants to achieve between the dog and the graduate.

A bond that takes place over a year's time after you take the dog home.

And that bond is such that when I go out, she is bonded with me, she's devoted to me.

I trust her to keep me safe.

I trust her to stop at a curb.

I trust her to wait before crossing the street.

I trust her to go around an obstacle.

I even trust her to intelligently disobey me if I tell her to do something that would compromise our team.

So there's a complete relationship that goes on, and I can't function without her out in the world.

- Cynthia, if public awareness and public education, helping people understand more and better than they do right now is our goal, and it is, you just helped a lot of people.

And I just wanna say thank you for joining us.

Cynthia Bryant is the chair person of the Board of Trustees for The Seeing Eye, an organization that's celebrating its 95th year doing important work.

Cynthia, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- Got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

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Kean University.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

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The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

And by Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

And by ROI-NJ.