by Elena Thomason
"It's almost like having a nightmare," says Thomason. "I keep thinking someone is going to pinch me and I'll wake up and realize that all of this isn't really happening!!"
Thomason, age 54, founded Tri Visual Services in 1981 and spent a little over two years developing a board of directors to become a 501(C)(3) non-profit corporation.
"It was difficult then too as I was asking friends and other professionals to support an agency providing services to the blind of our community at a time when the agency was merely on paper -- a dream." But those in the community who knew how desperately services for the blind were needed in town did sign on and over the past 19 years TVS has served thousands of blind people and their families.
TVS became incorporated in May of 1984 starting with services in the greater Sacramento area. In 1984 TVS hosted the beginning of the Blind Computer Users Group of Sacramento, which served to bring information about talking computer technology to our town. In 1985 the (TVS) Travel Club signed up the first member. The club grew to more than 500 members, the majority of whom were blind people. Monthly social events were planned, including overnight trips to Hearst Castle, day trips to Alcatraz, many Oakland A's games and trips to Reno and Tahoe. Over the next few years TVS developed a beep baseball team affording blind people the opportunity to play softball by using beeping baseballs and buzzing bases. In 1999, TVS sponsored the national Beep Baseball World Series here in Sacramento and our very own hometown team, the West Coast Dawgs, took the world championship.
"Many of our adult players had never even swung a bat before," says Thomason. "Beep baseball gave sighted and blind athletes a level playing field on which to have some serious competition and loads of fun."
In 1993, TVS opened its first Independent Living Skills Center in Placerville. Newly blinded people came to the training center to learn how to regain an enriched lifestyle functioning with low to no vision. At the center, students were taught how to cook, clean their homes, do laundry, pay bills using raised-line checks and many other critical skills.
In 2001, TVS received a grant that allowed expansion of its services into nine counties in northeast California. Support groups began in El Dorado, Yolo, Placer, Plumas, Lassen and Modoc counties. Low vision workshops were held where information about blindness and instruction in specialized equipment were presented.
"Perhaps that expansion was the beginning of our demise," says Thomason. "Too much growth at one time while TVS was still a rather small grassroots agency."
Shortly after receiving the grant, California's economy began its major decline. Grant money started drying up, fund- raising events yielded less, and, due to personnel shortage, some major fund-raising events, such as the Dog-A-Thon, had to be canceled. More consumers were requesting services while operating costs continued escalating. In an attempt to catch up with the times, TVS laid off all nine employees last November.
"We thought if we could just stop and reorganize and prioritize our services, perhaps we'd survive the slow economy and still be around when it rebounded," says Thomason.
TVS reopened its doors on April 1 of this year, bringing back four of the nine employees. "We knew we were still walking in quicksand and could go under at any time but we all agreed to give it one last chance. Clients were calling us and begging for services. It was a very bad situation to be in."
But it didn't happen that way. TVS was forced to send employees home one last time on May 31, 2003. At the June board meeting, the directors decided to start taking the steps to dissolve.
"This has been a very sad experience for us and our community," says Thomason. "We were never big, but with the great staff and wonderful volunteers we had, we managed to move mountains in all the communities we worked in."
TVS closed for financial reasons on June 30th. Thomason concludes, "We have made a lot of great friends during our 19 years in this community. We would like to thank the staff of the California Department of Rehabilitation, the local International Lions Clubs, the Sacramento Bee, KVIE Channel 6, New Directions, Peet's Coffee, Sierra Water, our friend big tall Jim Hall at KOOL Radio FM 101.9, the California Council of the Blind and the California Endowment for their substantial support throughout the years. We will miss working in collaboration with all of you, but most important, we will miss our consumers."