Organization Profile

The losses forced on the blinded person are many. Any one of them is severe enough in itself. Together they make up the multiple handicap which is blindness. Each loss involves a painful farewell. But with the death of the sighted man, the blind man will be born. And the life that is his can be good.
by author Rev. Thomas J. Carroll

The Carroll Center for the Blind is committed to the independence of blind and visually impaired persons of all ages through rehabilitation services, educational support services and employment training, enabling them to achieve self-sufficiency and personal fulfillment.

The Carroll Center was founded in 1936 and became an independent nonprofit nonsectarian corporation in 1947 under the Director, Reverend Thomas J. Carroll. Shortly thereafter, in 1954 Father Carroll established the first civilian residential rehabilitation program for the newly blind. It became internationally known and a model of modern-day rehabilitation, creating new possibilities for blinded individuals to realize their personal and vocational aspirations. He presented his ideas and methods and experimentation in his book, Blindness, What It Is, What It Does, and How to Live With It, Little Brown, 1961.

Since 1976, under the leadership, vision and dedication of the Carroll Center President, Rachel Ethier Rosenbaum, the Center has remained innovative. In 2002, we opened a new Technology Center on the Carroll Center grounds. This will keep the Center on the cutting edge of new technology and training in the area of distance learning. It will create a multiplier effect that could reach thousands within the blind community.

The staff of The Carroll Center view blindness as a complex disability that poses physical, social, psychological, and economic challenges, which are best addressed through a coordinated inter-disciplinary rehabilitation program designed for the special needs of each client.

Underlying all instruction is the belief that education and rehabilitation are much more than the simple teaching of skills. Rather, they are a long, intensive process of encouraging and enabling those who are blind to construct a meaningful and productive lifestyle, to strengthen their physical and emotional resources, and to accept, intellectually, the realities of their disability – in essence, the blind person learns to cope with blindness as a component of an active fulfilling life.

Guided by these principles, the Carroll Center for the Blind operates nine programs, through which we provide direct service to 2,000 blind persons every year: comprehensive rehabilitation for independent living, computer/vocational training, employment services, youth development, educational services, low vision, international program, community-based mobility (travel) instruction, and outdoor adaptive recreation.