HHBM captures the attention of many media outlets. Below are recent articles concerning HHBM and their community outreach!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2004
Students learn Braille, life lessons
Volunteers from Helping Hands Ministries visit Central High School classrooms
BY MORGAN JAREMA
THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS - Before last week, Darrell Smith had never heard of Braille. The Central High ninthgrader admitted that he always assumed that people who cannot see never learned to read.

Darrell, 15, was in one of three classes of freshman English students at the school who learned otherwise last week, getting lessons in writing and reading Braille as well as how the blind enjoy the written word, and life. Four volunteers from Helping Hands Ministries, a nonprofit group that translates Bibles and textbooks into Braille, visited the classroom of Rose Maher and Melissa Arsulowicz.

Maher came up with the idea of bringing in the Grand Rapids organization when she assigned "The Miracle Worker," a book about Helen Keller. Keller, who was blind and deaf from the age of 2, was taught to read and write by her.

• It was invented by Louis Braille (1809-1852), a French teacher of the blind.
• It consists of raised dots, arranged in groups of up to six dots in a 3 x 2 configuration. Each "cell" represents a letter, number or punctuation mark.
• Some frequently used words have their own single-cell pattern.
• Braille has been adapted to many languages, including Chinese, and is used for musical and mathematical notation.

"I wanted the story to come alive for them," Maher said. "I want them to see and understand the characters, to show them that this exists." Braille is a system of writing for the blind that uses characters comprised of raised dots.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002
Students get a feel for Braille through educational visit Helping Hand Ministries is promoting awareness about Braille.
BY ERIN ALBANSESE
THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

Some Stocking Elementary School students have learned a different form of ABCs.
Helping Hands Ministries director John Hemphill and volunteers led 25 fourth grade students in teacher Amy Quitmeyer's class through a recent alphabet lesson of Braille, the system of writing and printing for the blind developed by Louis Braille in the 1820s.

Raised dots represent numbers and letters and are identified by touch.
Students also spelled their names using Perkins Braille writers, or "Braillers." The Perkins writer is named after Perkins School for the Blind, where author Helen Keller went to school.

"I spelled my name," said Korrie Dun-leavy, 10. "Feel the bumps." The nonprofit Grand Rapids organization Helping Hands works to raise awareness of Braille, visiting classrooms to introduce the system. Christina Oakes. a blind volunteer and board member for Helping Hand, read a story in Braille, her hands quickly translating the dots.

"How many of you have seen a blind person read?" she asked. "I'm going to show you some stuff I use every day so I can function." She also showed students the white cane she uses as a guide for walking. Helping Hands has visited the West Side Stocking Elementary for three years, and Quitmeyer said the lesson in Braille fits into the curriculum well.

"It's phenomenal when you see her read," she said. "She reads faster than I do."
The class reads the Laura Ingalls Wilder novel "By the Shores of Silver Lake," in which the character Mary, Laura's older sister, becomes blind. Helping Hands volunteers present the free demonstrations at schools all over greater Grand Rapids.

Hemphill said Michigan passed a law two years ago that mandates every blind person have the opportunity to learn Braille. A major part of Helping Hands work is preparing textbooks. Another part of the organization's mission is to promote Braille awareness.

"This is a fun thing for kids to do," said Hemphill, who learned Braille from his brother Victor Hemphill, a Braille transcriber in Illinois. "Kids need to be aware of the differences in people." Claudia Yacuta, 9, said she was interested in Braille "to help people and show other people how to read it."

Hemphill gave the students a challenge while passing out a Braille homework sheet. "I would like you to take these sheets and teach someone else what you've learned today," he said.