Volunteer spotlight – Meet Stevie

Volunteer Week is officially underway, and there’s no better way to understand our volunteers than to hear from them directly… so, meet Stevie! She’s helping children who are blind and visually impaired to access the visual world of picture books!

Please introduce yourself…

My name is Stevie and I’m a volunteer for the production team at Living Paintings.

How long have you volunteered with Living Paintings?

I’ve been a volunteer for just over ten years now.

How did you find out about Living Paintings?

I saw an advert for a volunteer role at Living Paintings and was delighted to get involved. In a previous life, I had worked – and volunteered – for a charity in America that recorded books for blind and dyslexic people. They would record textbooks at all sorts of levels and volunteers there had to be able to interpret things like maps, figures and charts, to make them accessible for people who couldn’t actually see them.

So, when I saw the advert, and found out about the free library of audio tactile books, it seemed like a natural tie-in for me.

Did you have any experience of visual impairment before volunteering at Living Paintings?

One day, when I had got back from a holiday to the New Forest, I shared my souvenir porcelain ponies with my next door neighbour who was blind since birth. He examined it delicately to understand the shape. His mother looked at me and said, “I suppose that’s the only way he can understand what a horse looks like.”

That stuck with me from the age of ten and it made me realise how important a sense of touch is for those who can’t see.

What’s a day-in-the-life of a production volunteer at Living Paintings?

It’s very varied. Sometimes you’re stocktaking; sometimes you’re cutting up acetate to make the braille pages; sometimes you’re typing out the braille text. The volunteers are all very friendly, and you know the staff really appreciate everything you do.

What would you say to someone thinking about volunteering?

It’s a really worthwhile thing to do. I tell my friends about it and encourage them to volunteer. Living Paintings is very appreciative of its volunteers – they have volunteer coffee mornings and keep us all up-to-date with what’s going on – and, as someone who’s been here a long time, it’s very useful to have that.

Feel inspired by Stevie’s story? Find out how you can volunteer with Living Paintings, or sign up for our newsletter for more uplifting stories like this one!