On November 20, 2019 here at Benson High School Stacey Telgren visited with some of her visually impaired students. Benson students had the opportunity to ask them questions about their life as a visually impaired student.

Emma, who was born visually impaired opened up about her life and what its like to live in her world.

“I have been visually impaired for 19 years and my mom didn’t find out until I was 2 months old.” Still living with her mom, step dad and sister she has lots of help around the house. “Sometimes its hard to get around so I use my fold cane but at times its hard getting through grass”.

Emma’s mom, Paddy Ryan, wrote a small section in a book called A Different Kind of Perfect sharing her experience when finding out about her daughters condition and telling how she got through the stages of grief, denial, depression, acceptance, empowerment, and love.

” Its pretty cool that my mom wrote a small part of a book about life with me,” said Emma.

A bright and brilliant student, who goes by the name of Samantha is a young spirited girl. She suffered a brain injury due to her mother slipping on ice.

Her vision is partially gone so she can still read and write which are two of her favorite things. She has a job working at Kohls and has a personal clothing assistant to help her shop.

“I love dresses and glittery eye shadow as well as the smell of perfume,” said Samantha. Her being partially blind helps her other senses become stronger. ” I can hear a sneeze from far away, so my hearing would be my heightened sense,” said Samantha.

Being visually impaired doesn’t stop Samantha from living her best life with her bright spirit.

Logan, a boy born premature and blind shares his enjoyment in life and his struggles. He is open minded and very observant of his surroundings.

” I can still listen on to others conversations around me while having a task at hand,” said Logan. He loves listening to music and is known to be a fast speaker, so naturally auctioneering was something that interested him.

He even dared some students to play visually impaired games as he does daily.

“I dare you guys to try to play Blind Fold Driver which is a racing game and you’ll have to listen to the directions being said to try to win,” said Logan.

Besides getting to know some of Stacey Telgrens students, Benson students also got the chance to be bling folded and let Stacey guide them around the library. As well as closing their eyes and using a cane to get around obsticles in the library.

It was a great experience for Benson students to be able to meet these visually impaired students to more understand how other people live their lives with missing sense.