Xrai has informed me that they will donate John's glasses! We only need to raise $140 to cover the cost of putting them on his prescription lenses.

We are setting up a GoFundMe for our friend John, who has been deaf and developmentally disabled (DD) since his birth, 69 years ago.

In all his years, John had seldom socialized with hearing people other than his family, until he started as a client of R&R Inclusion.

John came to R&R 11 years ago for the community activities which we provide for people with DD. When we began working with John, it was a challenge to find activities that he could enjoy and, at the same time, learn appropriate social skills.

John didn't bowl and sat by himself, so bowling wasn't going to work. The dances on the beach also didn't work. He liked to play dominoes on game night, but learning new games was difficult for him. Eating at fast food restaurants happened with a lot of gesturing, but we were looking for something more for John.

Then, after John had been with R&R for a few years, we discovered Regal Cinemas provided Closed Caption glasses for the hearing impaired, and John discovered his new favorite activity!

For the next seven years, John enjoyed and looked forward to going to the movies with his friends. He started trying to communicate and made more eye contact at the meals we shared on those days. Recently, we discovered that those special viewing glasses are currently being phased out, replaced by another system which would be more complicated for John to use.

John will soon be missing his favorite activity - going to the movies.

Here is where you can step in and help John feel less isolated.

There are three companies which currently offer closed caption glasses to the public: Xrai, Captify, and Ray-Ban. Not only will they show captions in the movies, but they will also show captions when we talk to him! However, there is a substantial cost (approximately $1,000) for these special closed caption viewing glasses. John is unable to afford them. We are asking the community to help John get back to enjoying movies with his friends.

With the caption glasses, John can also wear them to R&R weekly events such as dinners, parties, concerts, social events, and meetings, and be able to read, on the glasses, the captions of everything people are saying and be connected to the conversations with access to all communications.

You can help John by making a donation in any amount, which will go toward those glasses.

Note: Any additional amount of donations over the $1,000 will all be for the R&R clients for socially educational experiences.