SPRINGFIELD – For about forty years, Valley Eye Radio, located at 44 Hampden Street in Springfield, has been broadcasting local news, information and special programming to reading impaired listeners throughout Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties. Formerly Valley Radio Reading Service, the non-profit uses approximately 50 volunteers to read the news in an effort to connect people with the community, and to fight isolation.
“The interesting thing, we’re a broadcast service you can’t hear on the radio,” said programmer Harold Anderson.
Anderson said they have a few different radio stations, including WTCC, WFCR and WHHI that allow Valley Eye Radio to piggyback on their signals through side bands. The main signal is for most listeners, he explained.
If someone wants to listen, they contact Valley Eye Radio, who does a computer analysis of the person’s location to determine the best signal. They then provide a specially tuned radio to that side band frequency. “All they have to do is turn it on,” Anderson said.
The station will then make arrangements to deliver radios to listeners. There is no cost for the service, but they do request a donation for the radios, which are valued at $65. Anderson said if somebody is in a position where they’re able to pay for it, “Great. Otherwise, it’s up to the individual. If they can’t pay, we say, here’s your radio,” he said. “We want to make sure that’s never a problem connecting to the service,” Anderson said. He said while there’s no exact figure on listeners, based on the number of radios they have out, they estimate numbers are in the hundreds to as high as a thousand.
Valley Eye Radio has also received recent grants from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, the Beveridge Family Foundation, Inc., the Bank of America/US Trust, Horace A. Moses Charitable Trust, among others.
As a general rule, the station focuses on local stories, and volunteers regularly read local newspapers for their unique, local content. They also read circulars to share where to get the best deals on groceries and other essentials, obituaries, and game scores
Begun as Valley Radio Reading Service, for a long time they were a one-person operation with an executive director handling all the aspects of the business, and 50 volunteer readers. A few years ago, the new Executive Director Barbara Loh started. Anderson, who worked for WHYN for many years, was hired part-time to get things streamlined and work on programming. They also recently hired a part-time executive assistant, who connects with legislators and community organizations.
As things progressed, over time the organization realized it was not enough to just read newspaper for the visually impaired. They now have a program called, “Beyond Newspapers.” Anderson said initially they had the Lions Club come in once a month for a program called “The Lion’s Club Focus,” where they would speak with a guest, such as in a recent program on diabetic eye health.
Anderson said now Valley Eye Radio has started attending community events and recording live interviews. Recently, they recorded a Veteran’s Service in Leeds, and a Health Fair at the Southampton Senior Center. He said people who have vision issues depend on someone for rides. He can go and record the information and make it available to listeners who are not able to attend.
“Part of outreach is to let them (the community) know about us,” he said. He will talk to vendors who work with seniors and veterans, and ask them if they’ve heard about Valley Eye Radio. “90% of the time they say no. It gives me an opportunity to talk to them about what we do.” He said often their eyes light up, and they say they know someone who could use that service.
Anderson calls it “putting a face to what we do, partly to advertise what we’re doing. There’ve been a lot of people here who sacrifice their time,” he said referring to the volunteers who believe in what they’re doing when they read. “I want to give them some credit,” he said.
Montgomery resident Mary Brady reads The Westfield News every Thursday at 11 a.m. on Valley Eye Radio. (Photo submitted)
One of those volunteers is Mary Brady, who’s been reading a weekly roundup from The Westfield News for the past six years. Brady said she learned about Valley Eye Radio by reading an article about it. She said her father had macular degeneration, and she knew he would have enjoyed the service.
Brady said she used to pre-record the program, which focuses on news from Westfield, Southwick and the hilltowns. Now she reads it live on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 12 noon, and the program is rebroadcast from 4 to 5 p.m. She said she reads City Council news, information about area construction projects, fire and police news, and the Superintendent’s Corner. Recent stories she’s read involved Baystate Noble’s zoning issues, and first graders who were studying cranberries.
“I really like to do Westfield, it’s very specific. Even the City Council, which can be boring, is important, tells where your taxes go. Some people may know the councilors; (have) some bonds of an attachment. I think it really serves a great purpose,” she said.
Brady said she used to be a pharmacist, and before that taught biology and math. She said volunteers do not need to be professionals; they just have to be able to read. Brady also said that Barbara Loh, the new executive director is doing “a fabulous job. She’s always increasing our scope. It’s great to see it grow.”
Brady said she will continue to read as long as she is able to. “There are people who need the service, and I’m happy to do it. Who knows, someday I may need it. You never know,” she said.
Recently, Valley Eye Radio added Spanish programming. Anderson said he spoke with the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, who told him they had 100 within the Latino community, but weren’t mentioning Valley Eye Radio because all of their programming was in English.
Anderson, whose mother was born and raised in Spain, does a weekly roundup of news in Spanish every afternoon for a half hour at 3 p.m. He doesn’t only read from Spanish-language newspapers, which he said tend to be community centered in the Latino community. He also picks items from other area newspapers, such as information about trash fees going us, and runs the stories through an online translator, then checks them for accuracy. He said he also connects with a Puerto Rican newsletter.
Valley Eye Radio is one of six affiliates on the Talking Information Center (TIC) Network at TICNetwork.org in eastern Massachusetts. Every day from noon to 2 p.m., they link to Taunton TIC for news from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. On Fridays, they also read books, in serial format, a couple of chapters at a time, both English and Spanish.
“So this is what we’ve been doing, trying to make our programming more timely and relevant, and connect to organizations in the community,” Anderson said. He said anyone who would like to hear a sample of their programming can go online to TICnetwork.org and click on Affiliates, where Valley Eye Radio is listed under Springfield. To contact the organization, go to valleyeyeradio.org, or call 413-747-7337. They are also on Facebook at Valley Eye Radio.
