Contact: Jennipher Walters

jennipher.w@mtti.net

816-523-9140 x109

WellSpring | MTTI Honors Kansas Audio-Reader Network as Academic Partner of the Year

Audio-Reader honored for its outstanding service to visually impaired students at the natural health and wellness education school and in the Lawrence community.

LAWRENCE, KS (December 2, 2009) – When WellSpring | MTTI Lawrence Campus director Rachael Gehringer enrolled the natural health and wellness school’s first legally blind student, she was excited yet a little overwhelmed at the task of turning all of the school’s massage therapy textbooks and written assignments into a non-visual format. After weeks of researching different options, Gehringer settled on Kansas Audio-Reader Network, a reading and information service for blind, visually impaired and print-disabled individuals in Kansas and Western Missouri.

Over the next several months, the WellSpring | MTTI campus worked closely with Audio-Reader to have all of the student’s textbooks and written assignments read aloud and recorded, ensuring that the student received a quality and equal educational experience to her peers.

“If it was not for Audio-Reader, our student would not have been able to excel and succeed in her classes,” says Gehringer. “The service is absolutely amazing and life changing.”

Because of Kansas Audio-Reader Network’s outstanding service and above-and-beyond dedication to this massage therapy student’s success and learning, WellSpring | MTTI is awarding Kansas Audio-Reader Network with its first-annual Academic Partner of the Year award.

This was the largest project that the Kansas Audio-Reader Network had ever tackled, says Jennifer Nigro, Coordinator of Volunteers for Audio-Reader.

“While most of our listeners want their special request recordings as soon as possible, we were very conscientious of the course deadlines,” Nigro says. “We wanted to make sure the student receiving the recordings was getting them in time for them to be helpful in her classes.” 

In order to do that, Nigro had to organize multiple volunteers to lend their voices to the project. Typically at Audio-Reader, a single volunteer completes a project from start to finish. But because of the scope of this project, two to three volunteers would be assigned to each book.

“This required not only coordination on the staff's part to ensure the right books and pages were being read on time, but also coordination between the different volunteers working on each book,” Nigro says. “This is especially challenging because the volunteers don't see each other—they left notes for each other with the book and communicated through me.”

So how do the Audio-Reader staff and volunteers feel about receiving this award and changing a student’s life and career? Humbled, Nigro says.

“Audio-Reader volunteers are a passionate bunch—passionate about reading, passionate about helping others and passionate about learning,” she says. “But we hear so little feedback from our listeners, so it's nice to get a pat on the back sometimes. It re-energizes us to tackle the next big project and to keep working to fulfill a mission that is so very important to all of us.”

Photo: Deb Yager, one of the volunteers who worked on the project for MTTI-WellSpring.

For more about WellSpring | MTTI, please call 785-856-3903 for information regarding our Lawrence campus, at 947 New Hampshire. Additional information can be found on our website at www.MTTI.net.

For more about Kansas Audio-Reader network, please call 785-864-4600 or go to their website at http://reader.ku.edu/contact.shtml.