NAMPA, Idaho — The City of Nampa held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday morning for the new Low Vision Center inside the Nampa library which seeks to provide new literacy opportunities for those with vision and hearing challenges.
The Low Vision Center was made possible due to a $5,500 grant from Together Treasure Valley.
The Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and Blind helped provide many new learning tools. At the center, you can find different resources like large print materials, audiobooks and educational sensory toys.
There also is an Acuity Speech Desktop Video Magnifier that has the ability to magnify documents up to 65x and read documents out loud in multiple languages.
“Together Treasure Valley funding has given the library a unique opportunity to invest in low-vision technology and educational sensory resources that will give long-lasting literacy benefits to youth and additional literacy support for adults with vision and hearing challenges. We look forward to expanding our reach and supporting not just Nampa, but the entire Treasure Valley community with our literacy efforts,” Nampa Library Youth Services Manager Laura Abbott said.
One librarian said this center is one step closer to helping create more inclusive opportunities and give children who are hard of hearing or blind a chance to learn.
“Such an important part of the human experience is to learn and this makes that opportunity available to children that don’t see and hear the way everyone else does so that they can make the important contributions that they have to make to the world and this is going to make a huge impact for those kids," Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and Blind Librarian Sharlyn Jackson said.
The new center is located on the third floor of the Nampa Library and is open to the public to come to see.
