The Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments, based in Richmond Heights, turns 60 this year.
Students in Jo Russell-Brown's Buddy Builders Play Group took turns performing on the drums and shakers Wednesday morning at the Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments in Richmond Heights
The activity is one of many in the early intervention class meant to help foster students' senses, stimulate their residual vision and facilitate interaction in social settings, Russell-Brown said.
The center provides services for a spectrum of visual impairments: Some students experience low vision, while other students are blind.
The organization, which turns 60 this year, recently surpassed a goal of raising $3.5 million. It did so over the course of two capital campaigns. The figure reflects the cost of purchasing and renovating its building at 1750 S. Big Bend Blvd.
Over time, the organization has grown to serve young people from birth through high school, form partnerships and provide support to families. Now, it is looking for ways to expand its services and build awareness throughout the St. Louis metro area.
Behind the work at Delta Gamma
During a tour of the facility, Russell-Brown explained how she uses themes to emphasize spatial relationships during the Buddy Builders class, which includes young people from birth to age 3.
On Wednesday, stars took the spotlight. In a room illuminated only by a blacklight, stars had been positioned next to various glowing objects. She planned to ask students to find the stars by directing them to the assorted objects.
In a play yard outside, stars had been placed next to a group of drums and a set of wind chimes. Older students can then practice orienting themselves to the auditory clues and locate the associated stars, Russell-Brown said.
The area features other devices aimed at piquing students' curiosity and raising their awareness of the environment, including:
a wall to which commonly used sports gear has been attached
a pool with a school of magnetic fish that can be hooked with a pole
a sewer grate and a raised step placed along a sidewalk path
Other activities are intended to raise students' awareness of the people around them. They practice making eye contact with speakers and the students sitting next to them.
Executive director talks organization's history in St. Louis Debbie Naucke has served for 16 years as executive director of Delta Gamma and has worked with the organization since the late 1980s.
She remembers when the group operated at a rehabilitated building at Henry Avenue and Manchester Road, less than a month into her hiring. Less than a year, a fire destroyed the building.
Delta Gamma employees became nomads, eventually leasing a "very inadequate building" off of Kingshighway Boulevard that few people wanted to visit. There, they only served students from birth to age 3 with education and therapy, generally in a home-based setting.
But that changed beginning in about 2000, Naucke said. Families approached Delta Gamma to say that their children, who had worked with the organization as infants, were struggling with school and social skills. So the organization began a new program for older students.
Employees knew they would need more room to accommodate its growing client base.
The organization rented space at The Heights community center, The Center of Clayton and other places, Naucke said. Because the group didn't have a home, it had little visual presence.
Then in February 2008, Delta Gamma bought the building that had housed Arts of Asia, a retailer that had gone out of business. The building had sat empty for a year. By September, Naucke said, the economy tanked, leaving Delta Gamma in a difficult financial position to make the upgrades and pay off the site.
To raise the funds necessary for the purchase and renovation, the group launched the first of two capital campaigns with a goal of raising $3.5 million. It was a "mammoth undertaking" for a group the size of Delta Gamma, Naucke said.
Delta Gamma began operating at the building in September 2009. While it didn't make the $3.5-million mark in that first campaign, Naucke said, a $250,000 matching grant from Lighthouse for the Blind-St. Louis enabled the group to raise the remaining $500,000.
"I'm very excited that we've reached our goal," Naucke said.
Looking to the future
Since starting its programs for older students, Delta Gamma has grown to offer athletic training, social outings and a tandem bike team.
It also offers an annual summer challenge trip in which students travel out of state to learn new skills such as sailing and surfing. On Thursday, for example, Naucke and a group of students departed for a four-day trip to the Apostle Islands, where they will camp and kayak.
Delta Gamma uses those activities and its educational services to give students skills that can be used in the workplace, Naucke said. Seventy-five percent of people who are blind or visually impaired are unemployed, she said, so Russell-Brown starts equipping students at an early age with the social skills they will need to succeed.
In recent years, Delta Gamma has twice partnered with Stages St. Louis to expose students to the theater. Students performed the self-written play Ropes at Maryville University and recently put on a production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Students at Glenridge Elementary School in Clayton have provided the center with three-dimensional artwork used to provide instruction in identifying common packaged grocery items. They have also served as sighted guides to Delta Gamma students during an annual run.
Delta Gamma is now looking at what to do in the future, and it's likely that more outreach will be involved. The organization wants people who are sighted to feel comfortable with those who have visual impairments.
"Ultimately, our kids have to live in a sighted world, and we want to bring them together," Naucke said. It already has hosted events at its rock-climbing wall that welcomed young people from both backgrounds.
As for the future, she is optimistic.
"I feel like there's endless possibilities," she said.
To find out more go to:
http://dgckids.org/
Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments
1750 S. Big Bend Blvd.
Richmond Heights, MO 63117
Phone: 314-776-1300
Fax: 314-776-7808
Email: info@dgckids.org
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