WENATCHEE — Lilac Services for the Blind will offer a ray of light for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of local people who find their world growing increasingly dark.

The Spokane nonprofit agency opens its first Wenatchee office at 4 Kittitas St. — across from Columbia Station — Jan. 23. The office offers services to help the blind and others with limited vision learn how to live independently. Services by certified trainers are offered free to individuals age 55 and over. Services for others are usually paid for through state Services for the Blind.

The office is also a store — open to anyone — where customers can try out and buy equipment and items specially made for those who have limited vision. Second hand equipment will be passed along free as it becomes available to those who can’t afford to buy new, said Carolyn Sibert, office manager.

“I want low vision people to know they don’t have to stop living,” said Sibert, 56, who is legally blind. She was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive genetic disease that causes tunnel vision and leads to total blindness. She quit driving 10 years ago after she wrecked her car in her driveway. When she was laid off from her job as an accounting assistant four years ago in Marysville, her husband encouraged her to go to a blind support school. She learned to use a cane and get around by bus or train.

The agency offers training on computers, low vision computer software, audio equipment and other devices that will enable people with limited vision to read and live fuller lives. A full kitchen is part of the office, where clients with limited vision can learn to cook using appliances with raised braille markers on the controls. The markers can be purchased at low cost and fitted to appliances in their own homes. Trainers can also be scheduled to visit low vision clients in their homes and offer training on how to live more idependently, how to use a cane and use local Link bus services to get out of the house.

The office employs a licensed counselor for private and group consultation. Classes will be offered on independent living. Clients can learn about the availability of seeing eye dogs, braille libraries and transcription services. Dr. Milt Herman, a local optometrist who specializes in limited vision, has an onsite office and will be available for appointments one or two days a month.

Local volunteers made it possible for Lilac to extend its services to the valley.

“I didn’t know where to go to learn how to be blind,” said Amy Jantzen, a 54-year-old Wenatchee resident who lost her sight suddenly in June 2010. Her vision was greatly impaired after a minor stroke cut the blood supply to her optic nerves.

She sought help from Vision Impossible, a Wenatchee Valley support group for the visually impaired. The group was started in 2004 by Rick Barnard, an East Wenatchee man who was suddenly blinded nearly a decade ago by the same rare condition that blinded Jantzen. Barnard is responsible for getting audio warnings on several local crosswalks. He also serves on the board of Lilac Services of Spokane.

Barnard, Jantzen and Linda Carveth, another Vision Impossible member whose mother suffers from macular degeneration, conducted a survey of local eye doctors to find out if there were enough people with low vision problems to justify Lilac Services starting a satellite office in Wenatchee. They found that there were more than 1,000 and possibly as many as 5,000 in North Central Washington who could benefit from better low vision services. Lilac’s board agreed to start an office if local volunteers could come up with office space.

Volunteers and local businesses donated nearly all of the materials and work to build the office in a previously open space in the Eagle Building, across from the bus station and the D.C. Straight Cafe where Vision Impossible meets each Wednesday. The Community Foundation of North Central Washington and Wenatchee Central Lions Club donated $5,000 each to the cause. Several local unions, churches, businesses and individuals also contributed money, labor and materials.

Jantzen said the office will eventually offer classes in many subjects that have been off limits to the blind — from cooking to kayaking — while educating others about a problem that doesn’t often catch the public eye.

“Just because we carry a cane it doesn’t mean we’re totally in the dark,” she said.

Rick Steigmeyer: 664-7151

steigmeyer@wenatcheeworld.com