When hospitality business senior Sally Charness stopped at the rock on Farm Lane on Wednesday afternoon, she didn’t know she was about to be blinded.
Students from the Council of Students with Disabilities, or CSD, asked her to wear a blindfold while reading braille printed on pop cans to simulate blindness. She soon could decipher an “S” on a can of Sprite, but she said it was hard to tell for sure what she was reading.
“It’s really another language,” she said. “I have a lot of new respect.”
The CSD camped out in front of the rock Wednesday afternoon for its Disability for a Day event to raise awareness for the group and show people what it is like to have disabilities including visual impairment, mobility issues and autism.
CSD Vice President Maggie Stach said this was the first year the group has held an event to make people aware of the disabilities some students on campus have because some ado not feel comfortable talking about their disabilities.
The students who stopped by could participate in several activities simulating disabilities, including the blindfold activity or working with a leader dog in training, a 12-week-old black Labrador retriever named Guinness, who was popular with those passing by.
Biomedical laboratory science sophomore Kyle Hildebrandt also took his turn reading braille on the pop cans, running his fingers over the braille letters on a can of root beer to figure out which pop he was holding.
“It was really hard (to tell),” he said. “The only reason I could tell was the space in ‘root beer.’”
Hildebrandt said the event was helpful to show people what life with a disability might be like, and said people often don’t realize the difficulties others might have until they experience it.
“I couldn’t imagine (being blind),” he said. “It’s so limiting.”
The group intends to educate students about all disabilities, not just physical ones, so students are “not in the dark” about them, said Stach, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
CSD President Marissa Poe also said the group has received approval to put braille on vending machines in one residence hall in each neighborhood starting next week. Poe said she is hopeful the group will continue the project in more buildings on campus next academic year after having gained support from administrators.
Stach said she hopes a similar awareness event can take place at least twice each semester to encourage people to learn about disabilities.
“We want (students) to be comfortable, knowing it’s OK to join a group with common interests,” she said.
Visit www.rcpd.msu.edu for information and resources about disabilities on campus.
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