What happens when Lions work together
 

One of several phone calls received at the Denver Den before the holidays requesting assistance was from Kathy Hand who lives in Conifer and has macular degeneration. Kathy is legally blind and is also a diabetic.   She had heard from her Mother who lives in Connecticut that Lions help people with severe eyesight issues, so she was asking if there was something we could do to help her.    Kathy  is only able to see outlines of people who sit in front of her.  She uses a 62 inch TV as her computer monitor and still has to increase the size of the text to a very large size.  She also has specialized glasses to see TV that have two lenses much like a telescope.
 
Myrna Ann, Chair of our Social Service Committee, talked at length to Kathy and discussed her needs for a reading device with Terry Lutts, Chair of our Eyesight Committee, but it seemed clear such help was way beyond our resources.
 
One night Myrna Ann noticed an email that had been forwarded by Pat Carlson from the Golden Lions Club.   Shelly Stansbury had contacted the Golden Lions, saying that she had a DaVinci reader her husband had only used a few months before he died that she wanted to donate to someone, but had been unsuccessful in her attempts to find how this could be done.  
 
Maybe, just maybe this would be the answer to Kathy's dreams.  This story has some winding curves from this point, but the ending is a happy one.  
 
Bob Storrs, President of the Golden Lions Club and Myrna Ann exchanged phone calls and email until it was determined that Kathy Hand would indeed be a good recipient for this device.  Lion President Bob delivered the device to Kathy last week and helped her set it up.
 
Kathy has written:   "The DaVinci has OCR, which gives it “text-to-speech” capabilities, which means I can put material on the platform and it will read the text.  I found it takes a “picture” of sorts, so I can have the material it is reading in my hands and be able to scan as it reads the text.
 
Kathy is very grateful to the Lions and has offered to volunteer if there is ever anything she could do to assist us.  
 
Isn't it amazing what can happen when we work together!