Since 1948, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic's volunteers have been helping people with disabilities fulfill their educational and professional dreams.
RFB&D is a national nonprofit organization that has several recording studios in Chicagoland.
Janet Seehausen is reading "Anne Frank and Me." She comes to RFB&D every Friday morning for two to three hours. Seehausen has been volunteering on and off since 1993.
"I enjoy coming in, I enjoy the people I meet. It's all business though when we come in. We read the textbook, and it's very gratifying to know that we're helping some student learn something, even if we don't meet the student, we know that they're learning through our reading here," Seehausen said.
Liela Halpenin, a former biologist, has been reading for 10 years.
"I read biology text, and I pronounce Russian words, and I read anything with foreign words in it, and I fake it in French and Italian, too. So I can do those words," she said.
There are over 40,000 books in RFB&D's national library. Volunteer service is appreciated, especially with the high demands for books on tape.
Janet Milkovich is the Illinois executive director.
"Right now, we're currently serving 9,000 students; 80 percent of those students have dyslexic or some other processing disability," she said. "What we know based on records from the Board of Education is that there are about 200,000 students that need our help."
Volunteers are trained by production director Nathaniel Meyer.
"We are recording a book from start to finish. All of the recording and all the stages of production are done by volunteers, so a volunteer will come in, and they will take a book off of our shelf get into a booth and start recording," he said. "We also have volunteers who perform quality control. They listen to those recordings and check for mistakes. We also have other volunteers who go in and fix those mistakes."
Recording technology is always changing.
"It use to be analog recording and reel-to-reel machines. It's now all done digitally on computers," said Milkovich. "We use a very simple program that pretty much anybody who knows how to use a computer can learn. It's designed to be very easy and quick to learn."
Since February of 2007, Roger Wilson has donated 250 hours of his time. Today he is reading a book on psychology which he is enjoying.
"It makes me wish when I was in school I studied a little harder, I'd found this a very interesting topic," said Wilson.
Recording for the blind and dyslexic are always looks for volunteers. In addition to their downtown studio, they have one in Orland Park and Naperville.
RFB&D
(312) 236-8715
