- Will you consider this?

Any idea that at least every year since 1964 in the United States, we have observed a White Cane Day and now it's observed around the world and there's a Peoria connection to one of those canes.

We'll find out more coming up.

(upbeat music) You may or may not have guessed that a white cane would signal aid for someone who was blind or visually impaired.

Of that, we should all be aware.

My guests today are Paula Balistreri, what a name?

Who is the acting operations manager for Central Illinois Center for Blind and Visually Impaired and Matt Stein, who uses the services.

He's also a comedian Blind Stein.

So welcome you two.

- Thank you.

- Thanks very much - First of all, let's talk about the Central Illinois Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, CICBVI.

- [Matt] Correct.

- All right, sounds like a Roman numeral.

- Sort of is.

- The Center has been around for a long time.

It had an interesting beginning.

There was a group of blind and low vision people way back in late 40s, early 50s who got together as the Illinois Social Club.

And they met in parks or each other's homes, and finally, they just said, "We cannot do this anymore without air conditioning."

And if you could imagine in the early 50s, air conditioning just wasn't around, people didn't have it in their homes.

So they initiated a fundraising drive and luckily were given a piece of land on Garden Street for $1 and in 1955, they were able to open a building for the Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

So they held their meetings there, held events there, the Center did a lot of community things.

Eventually, they got another patio right next door.

So they were able to expand a little bit and that's how we started in Peoria.

- Interesting.

And Matt, so we'll talk a little bit about your situation and then how you came obviously to be involved, but you have macular degeneration and you're young and it started to really, really turn up the heat when?

How old were you?

- Well, I have a retinitis pigmentosa, which is-- - Which is different?

- Yes.

- Okay, sorry.

- I mean, it's very similar in like how it affects the eye, but it's the genetic disorder that affects like the Y chromosome and then that affects the rods and cones of the eye, slowly kinda tunnel vision closing off vision.

So when I was younger, I was always like legally blind at night.

So whenever things weren't in a constant state of light, it was, streetlights kicked on, I lost where the football went kinda thing.

And then from there, it just kinda grew movie Tysons from kicking coffee tables and dark dark rooms.

And then as I got older, it just slowly got worse and worse, forfeited my driver's license around the age of 20 'cause my peripheral vision was just completely shut and gone.

And then at 25, it finally shut down to where I was kind of looking through basically a straw.

And then that's where I kind of decided to forfeit everything and kinda gave everything away.

And at the time I was considered more of a smart donkey, if you will, and when I went blind, I became optimistically funny.

So just kinda took those play things and started doing stand-up comedy to where I then toward for about nine or 10 years doing national shows and just kinda being a vagabond and putting myself in vicarious situations and then talking about them later on stage.

- Okay, well, I gave you good material.

- [Matt] Yeah.

So you've used some of the services.

Paula, tell me about the services at the Center.

- Well, today, the way the Center is we are a combination resource, director.

We are a commonplace for people to come together and we're very fortunate, especially here in the Peoria area, that we have services for children who are blind in their schools.

People who are born with a vision issue, they're mainstreamed into the school system.

We have a lot of resources there, but our demographic is more for either people who missed that because they're older and they didn't have those services in school or people such as Matt, who became blind later in life and obviously, had no clue - Adjustment period.

- Yeah, had that adjustment period.

- There are mentoring programs?

- Pardon me.

- Are there mentoring programs?

- Yes, we can point them in the right direction for services that are out there.

We do white cane training because believe it or not, you don't just whip out a white cane and know how to use it.

- I tried and it did not work that very well, yeah.

- We introduce people to technology and how to use it.

We have everything from assistive devices to help people still cook.

People who have lived their life one way and suddenly have to change to another way, have to have that adjustment.

And if they were a chef and that's taken away from them, so they think, that is devastating.

So we can be there to help them and show them, "You don't have to lose all those things that you love to do because here's some things that will help you continue on just like you always have."

- And you do that, Matt?

- Yeah, well, I'll say there's still safe ways to cook without having to use dull knives, you know?

So like there's assisted ways of using that and like the Bluetooth thermometers for like the speaking thermometers and even down to simple things, as much as like filling up your cup with water and not making a mess, they have a, I forget what they're called, those little beeper straws that let you know like where the-- - Where line is.

- Where the line is, yeah.

- And draw the line.

- And there's devices, if you're going to your pantry and you want to pick out a can of corn, how devastating would it be to open up a can and discover it's tomato soup.

- Been there.

(panelists laughing) - Yeah.

So there's things either how to organize your pantry or there's actually devices that will read labels out loud and that sort of thing.

The other thing that we do is we try to provide activities for people that maybe they would have been forgotten about.

We take people to plays and they enjoy them.

We go to different points of interest.

- We have baseball games and stuff.

- We do baseball games, exactly.

We have people come to our Center, we do meals, we have entertainment, we play bingo.

I mean, we just do all kinds of things.

Whatever they can suggest that, "Hey, I'd like to do that."

We do whatever we can to make it happen.

We provide transportation within the area so that nobody has to miss out because they don't have a way to get there.

So it's a peer support combination.

Here's the latest and greatest in technology.

We have what we call "Tech Tuesdays".

So every week there's a new device that we feature on our website or on our Facebook page or YouTube, where you can go and listen to how to use everything from an Alexa to a like Matt said, "A talking thermometer."

- Right, well, and you have these features on your phone that I guess I have on my phone that I didn't even know or they would be trouble.

- Yeah, voiceover and voice dictation, and I mean, I'm a big fan of the Apple products because of the built-in iOS like accessories for people with disabilities, even have like braille readers and stuff like that that are built into your phone already.

And then just simple apps too, like Be My Eyes is a great one that I use to where it's basically like a FaceTime app that connects you to other people just to literally do that.

Just be your eyes if you have a question.

So if there's anyone that wants to like help blind people, you can sign up and be like a sponsored eye person that will signal your phone that like, "Hey, a blind person needs help," you answer it and then from anything to, does this tie match the shirt to, is this a can of corn or a can of tomato soup?

(panelists laughing) - So how did you get involved in this, Paula?

Your sight is fine, I think.

- It is now, but interestingly, I was extremely near-sighted as a child and I was fortunate in that my sight could be corrected.

If it hadn't been, I would have been like Matt, legally blind.

But how I got involved in the Center was just at the beginning of COVID, they didn't have any staff, they had some medical issues with what there.

And so a friend of mine recommended, "Hey, maybe she can help out a little bit part-time."

I was retired from my regular job.

So I stepped in and I discovered this whole new world.

It was a rough year for COVID because we weren't really open, but we needed to still be present for our patrons.

So I was calling them on the phone, I created a newsletter that we braille and large print and MP3 out to people and just kind of kept that connection.

And the farther I went along, the more I enjoyed being with all these people and doing it.

So it's been a perfect situation.

They didn't want me to go, I didn't want to go, our staff is back, but it, it was like, "You need to stay," and so I said, "Okay."

- Well, that's very interesting.

And so the MP3, and then we also have audio books.

So do you offer audio books?

- We have a connection for books.

We have some that we let people borrow.

There's a library in Springfield that you can subscribe to for free and they'll send it, mail it to you.

So yeah, we can do that too.

- All right.

Yes, Matt, you look like, you wanna say something.

- I hear nothing.

- All right, so let's talk about canes, then we'll get to White Cane Day.

As I was reading up on things, there are five different kinds of canes, who knew?

- I know.

I didn't know, starting, of course, it was the blind leading the blind when I started at the Center because I didn't know any of this stuff.

And you're right, to be 100% effective, the cane needs to be measured to the person's height.

They need to be trained how to use it.

You can get some like what Matt has, which is collapsible, so that you can tuck it into a tote bag.

You can have what they started with, which were more the wooden canes and were not flexible or bendable.

You can get them with roller balls on the end.

You can get them with other things on the end.

They're very customizable to the person and what they're going to use them for.

The idea of a white cane is to increase that mobility so that people they're able to be out and about safely.

And as you said before, it is a recognizable symbol so that if you see that on the street, you know that person can't see as well as you can so you need to accommodate that.

- So like just this stiff wooden cane, I guess, for lack of a better description, that was the first one and people don't use that so much anymore?

- There are some people who prefer that kind, but not very many.

But yes, early on, they actually experimented with a couple of different kinds of material.

One of the issues is weight.

If it's super heavy, that's really hard to use it the way that you're it's intended to be used.

It's not a cane that is designed to be weight bearing.

So if you have mobility issues outside of your vision, then we need to go to plan B because the white cane itself is not that sort of a cane.

- Okay.

So Matt, demonstrate your cane here and how did you end up with this collapsible one?

I just thought it was for convenience.

- Well, yeah, for me, it's more or less convenience 'cause I mean, I can break it down, stick in my pocket.

I mean, I go through probably like two of these a year just because of the elastic inside eventually will break down just from being broken down and stuff.

- So many times, yeah.

- But the main thing with the white cane is, like she said, there are numerous tips that like, I wasn't privy to when I first got a cane.

'Cause I mean, from pencil to marshmallow to, I go with the high mileage red ball because I've actually jousted myself in sewage drains a few times where it would slide through crossing a street and then it drops down.

And then of course, yeah, you got to pick that up.

It's just chest wracking.

And it's just like, and then once something goes into a sewer in any city, I don't think you really wanna be carrying it around too much.

- No, exactly.

Do wanna put that back in your pocket.

No, exactly.

- One of the things that the Center does is for people who are signed up with us, which there's no cost to be affiliated with us at all, but if they need a white cane, we will replace it once a year for them.

So Matt, if you need a new white cane, you don't forget to call us.

- I still have one down there I need to pick up.

- Okay.

- That's my, "I forgot that."

- Yeah.

(panelists laughing) - But we do provide a white cane once a year, whichever kind it is that they want.

If it's someone who's never had a white cane before, we do require that they go through the training because it is the proper and safe way to use it.

- So training, that's where they get a feel for it, that's where they know if it's light enough or too heavy or what they feel most comfortable with?

- It's more how do you use it?

If you ever see someone with a white cane, you'll see that they're moving it back and forth.

So they're teaching them how to position it, how to move it back and forth.

If you're gonna tap it, how to use it if you're going up and down the stairs, how to use it if you're out in public, how do you use it around your home.

So it's not so much the fitting of the cane, although there is something that we have to do.

- Yeah, stern 'em down 'cause like the height of your cane when you hold out to your waist is set up to where the tip of your cane is here to touch where your next stride of your foot will fall.

- [Host] Okay.

- So if you hit something, you know to either like shorten up your step or just don't go that way.

- [Paula] Right.

- [Host] Okay.

- 'Cause when I first worked with Jen, one of the OEMs, because-- - What does OM stand for?

- She's a mobility specialist.

- Yeah.

(panelists laughing) - I don't know what the O stands for, but she's a mobility.

- I know, I'm like, "Okay, drawing a blank."

- That's right.

- But yeah, 'cause like I had kinda self-taught myself when things happen just because of like pride and ego, and then I realized that like I needed help and so that's how I like ventured out and asked for it.

And yeah, let's just say I scared Jen a lot on how I was accomplishing things for the past five years just because-- - You did it our way.

- I wasn't doing it properly.

Yeah.

(Matt laughs) - So she retaught you?

- Yeah.

- This is good.

You can teach an old dog new tricks.

- Yes, you can.

And Jen, her name is Jen Rita.

She is a board member and she's very active in our tech part and she still offers that kind of training when we get a couple people.

The other thing is that I'm sure everybody's heard of leader dogs and guide dogs, in order to have a guide dog for the blind, you have to have white cane training and have a white cane.

So they kind of go together.

You can't just say, "Hey, my friendly Beagle Hound here, now I'm blind, I wanna teach them how to be a guide dog."

And it doesn't happen that way.

- Okay, you have to go to high school before you got to college.

- Yeah.

(panelists laughing) - So you'll pair some of these dogs with the patrons?

- We don't but we have a connection with the service that does that and they work with the person to do that.

It's quite an extensive training for the animal and then to match the animal to the person.

And it's just that we kind of enter in because of it is someone who's newly blind, they do have to have that white cane training first before they're allowed to have a service dog.

So you make the connection and do the networking.

- [Paula] Right.

- All right, tell me about the white cane that was invented in Peoria.

Matt's got a story, we wanna see if we can connect the stories if its true.

- I'll hear the true one first and then I'll see if what I heard proper or not.

- Well, there was a gentleman who moved to Peoria in the late 20s, and of course that's Depression era.

He was quite talented and quite educated, but because of it being the Depression, he ended up opening up a newsstand shoe shine, that sort of place out on the sidewalk in front of what used to be the Pere Marquette.

- All right.

- Even back then, that was a high traffic area, and as it turned out, there was a man who was very active in the Lion's Club.

And the Lion's Club their main mission is vision and sight.

So anyway, he noticed this Mr. Thomason trying to maneuver across the street, and Mr. Thomason was pretty good already, but he wasn't able to cross the street very well and people around him didn't realize that he was impaired because he was pretty good about that anyway.

So Mr. Bonham, who is the Lion's Club person, decided, "You know what, I can help this guy."

And he started making a cane.

He made it out of a couple of different materials, but he decided that if it was white, that would be more visible than a dark cane, which was the style of the day, and the red tip, everyone knows that that's a safety color, that he would make that a red tip.

And so he created that, he had Mr. Thomason help, "Hey, how can we do this?"

And that was the birth of the white cane right here in Peoria.

The original white cane that was made by Mr. Bonham for Mr. Thomason is on display at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

And the story is printed there.

That actual cane is right there.

It was lost for a while, but Mr. Thomason's daughter actually found it again and so generously gave it.

It's been around the state a little bit, but it did end up here in its original spot and it's at the museum now.

- That's cool.

So you agree with that, Matt?

- Yeah, that's primarily what I heard, but like the story I heard was he saw a guy struggling, took a cane, dip it in a can of red paint and then just went around telling people.

- No.

(panelists laughing) - That's very interesting, but actually, Mr. Thomason was a musician and he has a great quote 'cause he talks about the things that you miss out if you're blind that you really don't miss out on, you just sense it differently.

For example, Christine, you're sitting here with a blue shirt on, so how do you describe blue?

Well, you can say, you know what, think of being cold, think of being sad, and blue is the color that kind of fits with that.

Just like with red think of hot, think of that sort of thing.

And so Mr. Thomason was actually very mobile, very smart, able to get around, and kind of like Matt here, very independent and was reluctant to ask for help.

So the connection between him and Mr. Bonham from the Lion's Club was very good.

It was a little bit of serendipity there because they were able to work this through.

But I think it's kind of symbolic of some of the people that come to us, especially people who become blind later.

They were used to a certain thing, they were very independent and it's hard to ask for help.

That's one of the reasons why we do so many social things because it is a peer-to-peer support and it's fun, it gets them out.

- You don't want them to be lost.

- [Paula] Exactly.

- You can fill the chip on each other's shoulders that like everyone can get at times after losing something.

- Okay, right.

Real quickly, we'll get back to what day is White Cane Day.

Matt, you have turned some of your loss into comedy.

And so you have a couple of gigs that you still do as Blind Stein.

- Yes.

- And I know that you even spotted for a golf tournament last year, the "Hole in One" goal.

- Yeah, the "Hole in One."

Yeah, surprisingly, no one was able to cough up the $100 to make the hole in one.

- Okay, that was good.

- But yeah, they could have had a lot that day And like, what was it?

Two years ago, I did the "Dinner in the Dark."

- Which is coming up in November.

- A fundraiser for the center, which was a huge help.

And then just through the years, like I have a couple of rooms still out in like Colorado and the Carolinas that I do.

Like I said, with the standup thing, it's more or less just flipping it back on people.

There's a sense that people that have a disability are a little bit less than what they are.

And so I just tend to still use that back up on people.

- It's not, it doesn't make you any less good.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- All right, so white cane day is coming up on October 15th.

- Correct.

- What do we need to do on that day?

- Well, plans are in the works for a walk and the Lion's Club is basically leading that effort because it's kind of their day, but we help with that.

October 15th, actually, that was set as a "White Cane" recognition day, way back in Mr. Thomason and Mr. Bonham's time.

But then as you mentioned before, it became a national day and so every year the president declares it a national day.

- [Host] Right.

And in 1975, Gerald Ford just made it automatic.

So the president doesn't have to do it every day, it's an automatic day.

So for us, we just want the recognition that it's out there.

The white cane is such a huge symbol for us and it's an awareness.

We are a tiny little group tucked away on the south end of Peoria, but we serve a very deserving segment of our population.

- How many people do you think you serve?

- Right now we have about 80 some patrons that are officially signed up with us, but we serve hundreds.

We get calls a lot from far away actually and I would encourage everybody to go to our website and our Facebook page.

- Okay, which is Central Illinois Center for Blind and Visually Impaired.

- Right, and you can actually, to make it simple, if you Google our initials, CICBVI, on Facebook it will pop up or on the website it'll pop up.

- All right, so you always need volunteers and donations.

- Yes.

- And they can go hand in hand, they can come separately?

- Yes, absolutely.

We have, as Matt mentioned, "The Dinner in the Dark" is coming up in November.

That is a fun dinner.

We actually put on dark glasses.

- And try to eat your meal?

- Yeah, and step into our world.

- Yeah, exactly.

So it's a very fun event.

It's at the warehouse right downtown.

- And tickets are or we can get them online?

- Yeah, they are available.

You get them online.

But for volunteers, we have a lot of opportunities.

You can come and if you're more of a yard work, clean up, maintenance, we can use that.

If you're a people person, we like to have volunteers go with us on our little adventures.

We do offer training for volunteers.

I noticed when Matt was coming into the studio here, he told you how to guide him here.

And so we do share that with our volunteers so that they know what to do, how to describe things so that even though you're seeing it, your person here doesn't, so to say, Christina is on my left, Matt is on my right, that sort of thing.

But the volunteers can serve at meals.

They can come and fold newsletters.

I mean, honestly, just call us, we'll find something to do.

And it's fine.

- Always come and hang out.

- Pardon me.

- I said, we just going to come and hang out.

- Absolutely, come and hang out.

- Will you be there to tell jokes, Matt?

- Every once in a while, yeah.

- Maybe, yeah.

- Give us one real, we have about a minute and a half, give us one real quick joke.

- You can't put me on the spot yet.

- Come on.

Well, not just-- - Is it just a PG show?

- Yes.

(panelists laughing) Making fun of yourself or people's reactions.

- All right.

Well, when people was like, "I can't imagine, I can't imagine what it's like to be blind."

It's like, really, you can't close your eyes and hold a blink like you never played peek-a-boo before.

- Right, exactly.

Well, when I texted him the address for the studio, he said, "Okay, thanks, I'll hear you later.

So you know what, and that's exactly what to do.

- Yeah, when the shoe fits, you don't give it to Cinderella.

- Well, and that's been a real learning experience for me, is my language.

I have worked really hard on saying things differently so that it's more inclusive.

- [Host] Right.

- And yeah, it's little things.

- Well, you guys have been wonderful.

Thank you for the enlightenment.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you for inviting us.

- Yeah, it's perfect.

So White Cane Day, October 15th, and other things in November.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Enjoy, stay safe and healthy.

(upbeat music)