How To Repair Chair Blind

A man playing a keyboard in a TV studio

Whenever professional musician Tony DeBlois embarks on a concert tour, he uses a skill he learned at Perkins School for the Blind.

It's a elementary skill most sighted kids learn by observation. But since DeBlois is blind, he had to exist taught, stride-past-pace, by his teachers.

That lesson was how to pack a suitcase.

DeBlois laughs when he thinks about it. "At present I travel, doing concerts all over the globe," he said. He packs and unpacks his suitcase more than oft than he ever would have guessed as a youngster at Perkins.

DeBlois is just one of many quondam students whose lives were changed by Perkins. The school, they say, gave them the knowledge, skills and confidence they needed to follow their dreams.

For three Perkins alumni, those dreams led to a surprising range of jobs – from musician to small-scale-concern owner to braille carte transcriber. Each of those jobs has a connection to Perkins.

Musical prodigy to 1-human band

Music came naturally to DeBlois. He started playing pianoforte at age 2 and took piano lessons at age five. Today he'southward literally a one-man band. He can play 22 instruments, including harmonica, violin, saxophone and ukulele.

DeBlois was born prematurely, and was diagnosed with blindness and autism. He also has musical savant syndrome – he has perfect pitch and tin play any tune afterward hearing it once.

DeBlois came to Perkins in 1983, when he was 9 years former. The schoolhouse nurtured his musical talent, giving him lessons in violin, trumpet, drums and singing. He took afterwards-school lessons in jazz theory at the nearby Rivers School Conservatory.

DeBlois also learned practical skills. As part of his vocational training at Perkins, he worked behind the counter at the student snack bar. "I learned how to count money and how to use a register," he said – while also learning how to interact with customers.

Those skills came in handy. Today, every bit a performing musician, he works at his merchandise tabular array after concerts. With Janice DeBlois, his female parent and managing director, he sells CDs of his music to fans.

DeBlois received a certificate of accomplishment from Perkins in 1995, and went on to graduate from the Berklee College of Music.

Now 42, DeBlois has released eight CDs and performed concerts in Red china, Ireland, Nigeria and other countries. His life story was made into a CBS moving picture of the calendar week entitled "Journey of the Heart."

In September, DeBlois embarks on a thirty-day tour. He starts in Connecticut and volition travel to South Dakota, performing solo concerts. At each finish, he'll use what may be the 2nd most of import skill he learned at Perkins – packing a suitcase.

A manus-crafted small business

Mark Remaly It started with broken chairs. Information technology's grown into a thriving business.

That's the quick version of how Mark Remaly, a 1970 graduate of Perkins, ended up running the Seat Weaver, a popular shop in downtown Westfield, Massachusetts, that sells a variety of unique items fabricated by local craftsmen.

The business organization owes its start to a skill Remaly learned while a student at Perkins in the 1960s – chair caning. Using his sense of touch, he learned how to repair the woven cane seats in wooden chairs. He plant he liked working with his easily and making broken things whole.

"At that place's the enjoyment of the finished product, but there's likewise the enjoyment of only doing it," he said.

Afterwards he graduated, Remaly started a chair repair business organisation from his dwelling house. He opened the Seat Weaver in 2009 with his wife Alice Flyte. Only three years subsequently, they moved the shop to a larger location every bit customers flocked to purchase handcrafted items similar pottery, soaps, scarves and dearest.

"People found they liked the unique things that were locally made," Flyte said.

Chair repair is still an of import part of the business, and Remaly offers classes in chair caning, passing on the old-fashioned arts and crafts to a new generation.

The skills Remaly learned equally a teenager – and honed over the next four decades – take likewise earned him a reputation every bit a principal craftsman. He's proud that he was asked by the Harriet Beecher Stowe museum in Hartford, Connecticut, to repair a historic 1870 chair for a display.

"I really enjoy my life," Remaly said. "I wouldn't trade places with anybody."

Making menus deliciously attainable

Tanny reads a brailled menu at a restaurant Tanny Labshere does her job on a keyboard – the six-central keyboard of a Perkins SMART Brailler®.

Labshere, a 2000 graduate of Perkins, is an entrepreneur who produces braille menus for local restaurants. She lives at Riverbrook Residence, Inc., a customs for women with developmental disabilities in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Labshere knows how important her piece of work is. She makes it possible for people with visual impairments to independently read restaurant menus.

"I take great pride in my work converting menus and material with 100 percent accuracy," she said.

The idea for the business came from a Riverbrook employee who wanted to take Labshere to lunch at a nearby eating house a few years ago. Wouldn't it be great, she asked the owner, if Tanny could read her ain menu in braille?

"Tanny got right on board with that," said Workforce Development Director Colleen Powers, who helps Labshere notice new clients.

But the real roots of Labshere'south business become dorsum to Perkins, which she attended from age x to 21. Information technology was in that location she learned to read and write braille, and, more than importantly, got hands-on vocational experience. She learned customer service skills working at the student snack bar, and learned the importance of attention to detail at Perkins Solutions, where she assembled brailler components.

She uses all those skills when she's creating braille menus for popular Western Massachusetts restaurants like The Red King of beasts Inn, Mazzeos Ristorante, Main St. Café and others.

Subsequently delivering a menu to a client, Labshere takes information technology for a test run.

"We sit down downward to luncheon or dinner, and Tanny is able to read her own menu considering she just brailled the menu," Powers said. "And she picks out whatsoever she wants to consume."