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Missouri Council of the Blind trying to establish Columbia chapter

The Missouri Council of the Blind hopes to foster improvements for the visually impaired in Columbia by establishing a new chapter. The council hopes to identify key people in the community and  is searching for leaders to run the Columbia council. With MU being a large part of the state Columbia community, executive director of the Council of the Blind, Chris Gray says the chapter would benefit the area.

“I know there’s a number of blind folks there who are not organized at the present time, and it’s our hope that they will come to the meeting tonight- I have every reason to believe that they will- and form an organization so they can do more collectively than they can do individually,” Gray said.

The council aims to reach out to the visually impaired and form a support network. After a chapter becomes established, it can begin to address specific problems to make improvements such as audible pedestrian signals. The Columbia Public Library is hosting the first meeting of the Columbia chapter Thursday night at 6 p.m. If there are at least 10 new members and over half are legally blind, the chapter will become official.