An American flag rendered in raised braille dots will soon sit at the St. Charles Parish library, allowing visually impaired visitors to experience the flag through touch.
The Louisiana/Mississippi regional group of the Blinded Veterans Association will present the tactile braille American flag at the East Regional Library in Destrehan on Wednesday Oct. 8 at 10 a.m.
The veterans’ group has now donated flags to multiple libraries throughout the state, including at both the East Bank and West Bank regional libraries in Jefferson Parish and the State Library of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. The group has campaigned to promote accessibility, inclusion, and patriotism among blind and visually impaired individuals, especially veterans, and it has set a goal to provide braille American flags to facilities throughout the state.
The BVA is a congressionally chartered organization that represents blinded U.S. veterans, many who lost their vision during their service.
Lauren Campo Pitz, assistant director of the St. Charles Parish library, said the entire community is invited to the flag presentation.
“This presentation and having the braille American flag on display for everyone to experience will serve as a way to honor our service members while reminding us that the public library is for everyone,” Pitz said.
The flag will hang permanently at the East Regional Library in Destrehan at a height where children and anyone in a wheelchair can reach it.
The donated display features a braille version of the Pledge of Allegiance as well as the braille flag. The stars and stripes on the flag are raised, with embossed markings on the stripes designating the colors.
“The BVA wants to ensure that everyone can understand what the American flag is, and with this braille flag, people with sight impairments are able to feel the flag and experience it in a way they might not have been able to before,” Pitz said. “This tactile representation of the flag provides people with visual impairments with the opportunity to connect with this symbol of our nation through touch while also helping sighted individuals begin to understand the braille system.”
Attendees of the presentation will have a chance to see and touch the flag. Members of the veterans’ group will speak about the significance of the flag and the history and mission of the BVA.
Pitz said the library serves people with various levels of visual impairment.
“We offer large print books, which are versions of books that use a larger font size than usual and have bigger spacing between lines to make it easier to read,” she said. “The size of text in eBooks can usually be enlarged, and we also offer downloadable audiobooks and audiobooks on CD.”
Through the Talking Books and Braille Library, the State Library of Louisiana offers services to Louisiana residents of all ages who are visually impaired, legally blind, have reading disabilities, or are unable to handle traditional books. The TBBL is an affiliate of the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.
