“Welcome to the Washington School for the Blind Foundation’s Web site. We hope your visit helps you learn about our Foundation and the people we serve.

There is a lot of information on this site and we do our best to keep everything current. We update frequently, so please come back often! If you do not find what you are looking for, if you can not find something you are sure you found here before, or if you just want more information about our organization, please accept my personal invitation to contact me by telephone or email and I will be happy to give a personal response to your questions.

The Foundation— what we call the ‘WSBF’— was created in 1995 to broaden and enhance educational and employment opportunities for persons in the state of Washington who are blind and visually impaired. We are a non–profit corporation formed under Washington law, and we are recognized as a tax –exempt organization under §501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The WSBF has a simple goal: to provide each person in Washington who is blind or visually impaired with the tools, skills and training necessary to give them confidence that anything they choose to do is possible.

In short, we help those who are blind find inspiration and achieve success.

The most critical issues facing persons who are blind or visually impaired are educational achievement (including literacy), independent living, rewarding employment, and access to technology. The challenge we at the WSBF have accepted is to tackle each of these issues for every person who is blind or visually impaired that we can.

The scope of our challenge is daunting. In Washington State alone there are currently 1,486 school–age children who are blind or visually impaired. (About 1.1 million people in the United States are blind, and each year 50,000 more will become blind). These are the children who receive most of our attention. Some of them attend the state–funded, Washington State School for the Blind where they receive tremendous education and life training. But, they do not stay at the School forever, and we want all of the students in Washington who are blind and visually impaired to have the same opportunities to find good work and to further their educations that sighted students do.

Thank you for taking the time to visit us at this Web site. I encourage you to learn as much about the WSBF as you can.

May the pages that follow inspire you to help us help the people we serve.”

Barbara Sheldon, Executive Director

Washington School for the Blind Foundation

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”

—Keller