VIDEO: Celtics Team Up to Read with Perkins Students

Two Boston Celtics visited the school for the blind in Watertown.

  Most days you will find Jason Terry and Terrance Williams sinking baskets on the basketball court, but Thursday afternoon the two Boston Celtics read with students at the Perkins School for the Blind. The pair tackled "The Three Little Pigs" Thursday using Apple iPads loaded with an app to help the visually impaired read.  Terry and Williams were joined by Boston Celtic's co-owner Wyc Grousbeck at Perkins' Grousbeck Center for Students & Technology. The center opened in 2011 and was built with the help of a donation from the Wyc Family Foundation. After storytime, the Celtics players checked out some other apps that help the blind and visually impaired and visited the Perk Cafe. Before they left, Terry, Williams and Grousbeck were …

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Gov. Patrick's Book Inspires Book Club at Watertown's Perkins School

The group at the school for the blind invited the governor to come read from his book.

Most book groups are an intimate affair, but when the special guest is the governor of Massachusetts it attracts an auditorium full of eager listeners. Thursday morning, Gov. Deval Patrick read from his book "A Reason to Believe" after being invited to Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown by the school's Elder Reading Group. "I have never seen a book club so big, and I have never been to a book club with TV cameras recording what is going on," Patrick said. The book club, which meets monthly at Perkin's Braille & Talking Book Library, read Patrick's book in May 2012, and one member was so impressed that she thought every junior and senior high school student should read the book, said Kim Charles, director of the Perkins Library. The …

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Watertown Resident Wins Deaf Community Leader Award

Jaimi Lard received the award during Deaf Awareness Week.

The following information was provided by the Perkins School for the Blind: Jaimi Lard, spokesperson for Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, received the Hamilton Relay 2012 Deaf Community Leader Award. Lard, who is deafblind, was recognized for her advocacy work for people with disabilities. The award was presented by Moira Hennessey, Massachusetts Community Relations Manager for Hamilton Relay, which provides telecommunications services for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Also attending the presentation were Perkins President Steven M. Rothstein and Christine Dwyer, Lard’s sign language interpreter. The award was presented during Deaf Awareness Week.

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A Local Harvest at Watertown's Perkins School for the Blind

Perkins School for the Blind celebrated the season’s bounty at the third annual Farm to School Fair.

Farmers brought a wide variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables grown in the region to Perkins School for the Blind on Sept. 20. Perkins students had a hands-on, educational experience identifying plants, making herbal tea, and sampling a mouth-watering smorgasbord made from local ingredients, including vegetables from the campus garden. Two baby dairy goats stole the show and students’ hearts. The event was part of the Massachusetts Farm to School Project.

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Maximo's Takeout Celebrates First Birthday with Sandwich in Honor of the Perkins School

The East Watertown eatery will donate 5 percent of purchases to the school for the blind and visually impaired.

The following information was provided by Maximo's Takeout: Maximo’s Takeout is celebrating its first birthday with the launch of the “Perkins Panini”, in honor of local charity the Perkins School for the Blind. Owned by Phillip Zeller and his wife, Betsy, a program manager at Harvard Business School, Maximo’s Takeout opened in September 2011 and takes its name from the family’s two children, Max and Morgan. Every Monday, the restaurant donates 5 percent of the entire purchase for any customer who mentions Perkins School to benefit the school for the blind and visually impaired. The offer applies to individual or business catering orders. A restaurant family through and through, the couple met whilst working at the Cheesecake Factory in …

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Dogs Have Their Day at Perkins School for the Blind

Service dogs and the people they assist gathered at Perkins School for the unveiling of the U.S. Postal Service's new service dog stamps.

  Hundreds of people crammed into Dwight Hall at Perkins School for the Blind Tuesday to catch a glimpse of the service dogs and the people they assist during a ceremony to unveil the U.S. Postal Service's new service dog stamps. The stamps honor four kinds of service dogs, said Boston Postmaster Jim Holland: a guide dog represented by a black lab, a tracking dog with a yellow lab pictured, a search dog with a picture of a German shepherd and a helper dog which has a Welsh Spring Spaniel. The event was emceed by WCVB Channel 5 news anchor Randy Price. Kim Charlson, director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library can attest to the value of service dogs. She has had four seeing-eye dogs, including her current one, Dolly - a German …

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Commercial for Perkins' Library Honored by Mass. Library Association

Watertown-based Braille & Talking Book Library received the honor for a spot featuring a book group and the library's array of offerings.

A television announcement produced for the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library earned the silver ribbon for advertising from the Massachusetts Library Association's Public Relations Committee. Produced by the Perkins School for the Blind Communications Department for the Library with Last Minute Productions, award-winning 30-second television announcement features an book group that includes sighted and blind participants using a variety of media, large print, braille, regular print and audio books. To view the ad, click the video on the right. The spot emphasizes how the Braille & Talking Book Library helps people stay connected to the community by reading. The ad’s seeks to support the library's goals of engaging new library patrons, …

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Boston Marathon 2011

Watertown Resident Running Race to Raise Money for Perkins

Kelly Cote is one of 19 runners on the Perkins School for the Blind team.

Perkins School for the Blind announced one of the Boston Marathon runners raising money for the school is from Watertown: On April 18, Watertown resident Kelly Cote will endure 26.2 miles of sore feet and aching muscles for a good cause. She’ll run the Boston Marathon to raise money for Perkins School for the Blind. Cote is one of 19 runners on the Perkins charity team who will pound the pavement from Hopkinton to Boston to raise over $100,000 for people who are blind or visually impaired. Cote has personally committed to raising $10,000. The Perkins team, which includes runners from around the country, is an officially recognized charity for the 115th Boston Marathon. It’s the only charity team in the 2011 race that focuses exclusively on…

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New Perkins Building Is a Lesson in Smart Design and Technology

The new Lower School building on the Perkins campus, dedicated in March, was created with the latest in "green" design, from solar panels on its roof to low-hum fluorescent lights for better learning.

The first time one enters the new Lower School building at the Perkins School for the Blind, inaugurated in March, something seems to be missing. There's plenty of activity: students, staff, and teachers passing in the hallways, activities going on in classrooms, custodians carrying out tasks. Yet it's quiet. More like a small college than a secondary school for 6- to 14-year-olds. "We've found that excessive noise can make learning harder for many students," explains Kathy Heydt, assistant education director for the Lower School Program. "So technologies have been incorporated into the building's design to lessen noise." It's part of a two-year planning effort that has resulted in a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly, energy-…

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Perkins Library Helps Veterans, Others Enjoy Books

The Braille & Talking Book Library at Perkins School for the Blind offers free books on tape and in Braille to the blind. Veterans get first priority for audio equipment.

Larry Mangini of Swampscott goes through four or five books a month, but since he lost most of his sight in 1996 he relies on audio books he receives from the Braille & Talking Book Library at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. Mangini served in the U.S. Army from 1966-69, and had a tour of duty in Vietnam with an engineering unit. He developed ischemic optic neuropathy and lost most of his vision in 1996. His life was completely overturned when he lost his sight. "I lost my sight, I got divorced – my life was a country song," Mangini said. The former police officer and veteran got back on track thanks to the help of support from the Veterans Administration (VA), the state Department on Disabilities. He attended UMass-Boston and …

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