San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind -- Thurs., Jan. 24

The ladies group (20 total today) at Travelers World RV Resort headed a short distance up Roosevelt Avenueto tour San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind. From the moment we walked in the door and were greeted by DiDi, we were made to feel right at home. No wonder Lighthouse for the Blind was voted a top workplace in San Antonio in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Since 1933, San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind (SALB) has been training, employing and educating the blind and visually impaired. On site, they manufacture for military and government agencies as well as products to sell to the general public. The SALB manufactures mechanical pencils, pens, highlighter pens, clam clamps, military apparel, chin/helmet straps, aircraft blankets, and absorbents. It also operates 14 mission support stores on 11 military installations.

You can read all about San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind on their website. (Click link.) To support the Lighthouse for the Blind, you can order products from them on their website to help the blind and visually impaired work and lead independent lives.

Here's a photo tour...

Many inspirational quotes adorn the walls.

Sewing department where army shirts, marine and army chin/helmet straps, and cargo netting for cargo planes are made.

Army shirt with impeccable workmanship.

Sewing cargo plane netting.

Laying out and gluing cargo plane netting before sewing.

Assembly of cargo plane netting.

Manufacturing Department for mechanical pencils, pens and clam clamps.

What are clam clamps? Glad you asked. Clam clamps are being used by the military in place of staples. Clam clamps lie flat and clamp multiple pieces of paper together. When you're done using them, you pull them off the papers and re-use them! Home application of clam clamps is to use them to close bags of chips or cookies to keep them fresh. After our tour, many of the ladies purchased clam clamp dispensers (like a stapler) and refills.

Assembly of clam clamps:

Filling mechanical pencils with lead.

Putting together marine chin straps.

These are all marine chin straps.

Rules for working on the manufacturing floor. I like these.

Below is the machine that punches out the chin guard for the marine chin/helmet straps. Some of the ladies were able to try it out.

 

The next photo is of the Engineering department where machines are adapted to be blind and vision-impaired friendly.

Engineering department.

 Next we moved into the department where clothing is cut. 

High tech cutting machine.

 

Juvenile dentetion uniform.

Clothing made here includes the lovely juvenile detention uniform above. Below is a white exercise outfit used by swimmers, Coast Guard jacket and Army combat shirt and pants. If you look closely at the white exercise outfit, you can see weights sewn into the legs. A gentleman came out and explained to us that many more weights can be added into the legs and torso of the exercise outfit and are used a lot by swimmers to strengthen themselves. After they use the weights for training, then remove the weights, swimming is a lot easier. (I'd be afraid I'd sink with that extra weight!)

Lighthouses show up throughout the building.

Beautiful mural in their cafeteria.

Tile lighthouse.

Lighthouses and clam clamps.

Artwork

More artwork--love the colors and textures.

Speaker from one of the departments.

Enlarge to see different types of sight problems.

Sight problems.

Sight problems.

Keyboard for someone with only one hand.

Beautiful wall hanging with lots of texture.

The tour was supposed to be one hour, but we were there for two hours. It was lunchtime! We drove to City Base for lunch at Captain Ben's Seafood Shack. I had grilled lemon pepper cod which I would not order again. When it said grilled, I pictured naked, however it was covered in crust and was very close to deep fried. Any lemon-pepper flavoring was killed off by all the salt. Next time I will go with another ladies' recommendation of coconut shrimp. She and her husband really like the shrimp option.

It was a fun day out with the women. 

Tonight I watched the season finale (or was it THE finale (?) ) of "Last Resort," followed by channel surfing between "Millionaire Matchmaker" and "Project Runway." Then Bob and I walked 3/4 mile around the RV park.

Oh, it was a crazy day yesterday with all the check-ins at the RV park. At one time around 2:30 p.m., one of the staff had to go out to direct in four large motorhomes with toads so they wouldn't block traffic. She had two go down one aisle, and two go in another aisle. 

After that a pick-up truck with some RVers in it was parked in front of the park office. I heard a siren and a fire truck and ambulance came to the aid of someone in the pick-up truck. I don't know what happened, but they treated the person and sent them back to their RV. They were out there about an hour. Did I mention from the site we're in now we can see pretty much the whole RV park? I never knew there was so much action when we had a site in the back of the park!

Welcome to Sunny of Changing Lanes and Kelly for whom I could not find a blog. Thank you for joining in on our life's journey.

Travel Bug out.