Valley Radio Reading Service - Springfield, Massachusetts

With the year winding down and the celebrations a couple days away, I'd like to take a moment draw your attention to the Valley Radio Reading Service, which provides a local news source for the blind and vision impaired in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts.

I've been volunteering as a reader for them for over a year, reading local news in a recording booth, and sometimes live.  I've been invited to read from one of my books, so for the past several weeks I've been reading from my novel on the Quabbin Reservoir and the Swift River Valley residents who had to leave their homes to make way for the construction -- Beside the Still Waters.

Community news is a very important aspect of our daily lives, and this is one area where the blind and vision impaired are at a loss.  They are able to get a wide array of national news from television or radio, but community news from daily newspapers -- and also in weekly newspapers of small distribution -- are lost to them.  The Valley Radio Reading Service helps them to connect with their community and to remain a vibrant part of it.  Local events and attractions, club news, meetings, and especially the local obituaries -- all are grist to our mill at the VRRS.  And one novel about the Quabbin.

The readers are volunteers.  But funds are needed constantly to maintain the broadcast equipment, the office, and keep our subscribers to this vital service informed and entertained.  If you care to make a donation, please contact the Valley Radio Reading Service at this website, or write to the VRRS at 44 Hampden Street, Springfield, MA, 01103, or call 413-747-7337.  Tell them I sent you, and thanks.