Target Expands Aira Use

original article found here: https://www.supermarketnews.com/issues-trends/target-expands-aira-service-blind-and-low-vision-customers

Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has expanded a pilot program to 600 stores to offer a free service called Aira for those customers who are blind or have limited vision.

Aira connects blind and low-vision guests with trained agents who act as visual interpreters. Following a successful pilot that began last year, Target launched the service to the additional 600 stores across the U.S. in November.

According to Target, the partnership with Aira allows it “to make a real difference in blind and low-vision guests’ shopping experience, but it’s also building on Target’s journey to create a deep foundation of accessibility.”

The project was developed by Target’s accessibility team, including lead consultant Steve Decker — who’s blind himself — and others at the retailer’s headquarters in the U.S. and India. The team members couple their diverse backgrounds along with their own experiences with disabilities to champion accessibility in Target stores and online. 

Each day, I have an incredible opportunity to help make Target even more welcoming and inclusive,” said Decker. “I get to turn my personal experiences into solutions that not only make daily tasks easier, but bring a little extra everyday joy to even more guests, no matter how they shop.”

Aira services are now available at Target stores in 13 major markets, including Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Houston, Denver, Baltimore, Austin, Washington D.C. and the San Francisco-Bay Area. Once in an Aira-enabled store, guests can use their smartphone or Aira smart glasses to access the app. Aira is available free of charge as long as guests are in the store, with no limit on call time. 

Customers can download the Aira app at aira.io/app and complete a brief registration. They can then select “Call Using a Free Offer” to access a list of nearby Aira access locations.

Mental Health Tip of the Week

25 Ways to Find Joy and Balance During the Holidays

Feeling down during the holidays can be tough, especially, if you find yourself feeling so out of step with the world while everyone else around you seems to be beaming, full of energy and bursting with holiday spirit. Well, you’re not alone. The next time you find yourself in a room of what appears to be cheerful individuals at a holiday party, chances are,  many of them may be feeling the same as you.  In fact, according to a study done by Dr. Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the holidays can be the worst time of the year, and not just for those who suffer from clinical depression. So, if you are one of the individuals who finds themselves experiencing bouts of depression or sadness during the holiday season here are 25 tips that can help lift your spirits and provide you the ability to enjoy this festive season along with everyone else.

Finding the Holiday Spirit: Emotions

1.Keep your expectations modest. Don’t get hung up on what the holidays are supposed to be like and how you’re supposed to feel. If you’re comparing your holidays to some abstract greeting card ideal or a Hallmark holiday movie, they’ll always come up short. So, don’t worry about holiday spirit and take the holidays as they come.

2.Do something different. This year, does the prospect of the usual routine fill you with holiday dread rather than holiday joy?  If so, don’t surrender to it. Try something different. Have Thanksgiving at a restaurant. Spend Christmas day at the movie theater. Get your family to agree to skip gift giving and instead donate the money to a charity. Change is good and can provide therapeutic benefit.

3.Lean on your support system. If you’ve been depressed, you need a network of close friends and family to turn to when things get tough. During the holidays, take time to get together with your support system regularly, or at least keep in touch by phone to keep yourself centered.

4. Don’t assume the worst. “I think some people go into the holidays with expectations so low that it makes them more depressed, so don’t start the holiday season anticipating disaster. If you try to take the holidays as they come and limit your expectations, you may find that they are actually more enjoyable.

5. Forget the unimportant stuff. Don’t run yourself ragged just to live up to holiday tradition. What if you don’t get the lights on the roof this year? What if you don’t get the special Christmas mugs from the crawl space? Give yourself a break. Worrying about such trivial stuff will not add to your holiday spirit.

6. Volunteer. Sure, you may feel stressed out and booked up already. Consider taking time to help people who have less than you. Try volunteering at a soup kitchen or working with a toy drive. “You could really find a since of comfort knowing you’re making a small dent in the lives of people who have so little.”

Finding the Holiday Spirit: Family

7. Head off problems. Think about what people or situations trigger your holiday stress and figure out ways to avoid them. If seeing your uncle stresses you out, skip his New Year’s party and just stop by for a quick hello on New Year’s Day. Instead of staying in your bleak, childhood bedroom at your parents house, check into a nearby hotel. You really have more control than you think.

8. Ask for help, but be specific. See if your spouse will lug out the decorations. Ask your sister to help you cook, or host the holiday dinner itself. Invite a friend along on shopping trips. People may be more willing to help out than you expect; they just need some guidance from you on what to do.

9. Don’t worry about things beyond your control. So, your uncle and your dad get into an argument over who will carve the turkey every holiday dinner and it makes you miserable. Remember your limits. You can’t control them, but you can control your own reaction to the situation.

10. Make new family traditions. People often feel compelled to keep family holiday traditions alive long past the point that anyone’s actually enjoying them. Don’t keep them going for their own sake, start a new holiday tradition instead  Create one that’s more meaningful to you personally.

11. Find positive ways to remember loved ones. Holidays may remind you of the loved ones who aren’t around anymore.  Instead of feeling glum, do something active to celebrate their memory. For instance, go out with the family to your mom’s favorite restaurant and give her a toast. It will keep her memory alive and provide you with comfort.

Finding the Holiday Spirit: Parties

12. Don’t overbook. People need to pace themselves or they’ll get overwhelmed. Don’t feel you have to say yes to every invitation you receive. Think about which parties you can fit in, and which ones you really want to attend.

13. Don’t stay longer than you want. Going to a party doesn’t obligate you to stay until the bitter end. Instead, just drop by for a few minutes, say hello, and explain you have other engagements. The hosts will understand that it’s a busy time of year and appreciate your effort. Knowing you have a plan to leave can really ease your anxiety.

14. Have a partner for the party. If the prospect of an office party is causing holiday stress, talk to a friend and arrange to arrive and leave together. You may feel much better knowing you have an ally and a plan of escape.

Finding the Holiday Spirit: Shopping

15. Forget about the perfect gift. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed, now is not the time to fret about finding the absolute best gift ever for your best friend or significant other. Remember: everybody likes a gift certificate.

16. Shop online. Save yourself the inconvenience, the crowds, and the horrors of the mall parking lot by doing the bulk of your shopping online.

17. Stick to a budget. The cost of holiday shopping mounts quickly and can make people feel out of control and anxious. Draw up a budget long before you actually start your shopping and stick to it.

Finding the Holiday Spirit: Self-Care

18. Stay on schedule. As much as you possibly can, try to stick with your normal routine during the holidays. Don’t stay too late at parties. Don’t pull an all-nighter wrapping presents. Disrupting your schedule and losing out on sleep can make your mood deteriorate.

19. Exercise. While you may not feel like you have the time to exercise during the holidays, the benefits are worth it. Research shows that exercise has a strong anti-anxiety, anti-depression effect. You can work physical activity into your errands. When you’re shopping, take a few extra laps around the mall. Walk your Christmas cards to the post office instead of driving.

20. Eat sensibly. When you’re facing a dozen holiday parties and family gatherings between now and New Year’s, it’s hard to stay committed to a sensible diet. But try. Eating healthy may keep you feeling better both physically and emotionally. On the other hand, don’t beat yourself up if you go overboard on the cookie platter in the break room. It’s not a big deal. Just get back on track the next day.

21. Don’t rely on holiday spirits (or other substances.) The holidays are often a time of heavy drinking. It’s a common strategy for getting over anxiety about holiday parties or having the boss as your Secret Santa.” Remember that alcohol is itself a depressant and abusing it will leave you feeling worse. It also may not be safe for people taking antidepressant medication or other psychotropics.

22. Try a sun lamp. As the daylight grows shorter, lots of people find their mood gets gloomier. While some have diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), those who don’t may still have a seasonal aspect to their depression. Talk to your doctor about trying a sun lamp. It could improve your mood.

23. If you take medication, don’t miss doses. In the hustle of the holidays, it’s easy to slack off and miss medication.  Don’t let that happen. Make sure that you’re up-to-date on your refills, too.

24. If you see a therapist, have extra meetings. To stay grounded, plan ahead and schedule some extra sessions during the holiday season. You could also ask about the possibility of doing quick phone check-ins.

25. Give yourself a break. The holidays can make some people dwell on their imperfections, their mistakes, the things they’re not proud of.  Try to cut yourself some slack. “This is not an easy time of year for a lot of people. Be gentle with yourself. It is the season of kindness and forgiveness, after all. Save some of it for yourself

Blind Hockey Player finds Hope

An athlete who lost his sight due to Retinitis Pigmentosa gained a new sense of purpose when he joined the National Blind Hockey team. Read on to hear his inspiring story!

original article found here

Charlie Mitchell first noticed something was happening to his vision during his freshman year of high school.

An athlete since he was a kid, Charlie started to find sports a little harder, whether he was playing golf, baseball or hockey. He could hardly see the golf ball and, in the outfield, pop flies might as well have been surprise attacks from dive bombers.

At the time, Charlie didn’t think it was a big deal.

“I never thought enough of it to get it checked out at that point,” Charlie said.

Charlie is now legally blind – his vision having deteriorated as a result of a genetic condition known as Retinitis pigmentosa – but his career as an athlete has never been better. As of this year, Charlie is one of six new players to join the USA National Blind Hockey Team.

For the first time in years, Charlie and his wife Katie Mitchell have something they thought was lost: hope.

“It was just really helpful to snap me out of that negative mindset and to start questioning what my boundaries are with the visual impairment and just assuming that I can’t do things,” Charlie said.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Charlie moved to Indiana to attend the University of Notre Dame, where he met Katie freshman year. After his time at Notre Dame, Charlie went to law school at George Washington University in D.C. from 2012 to 2015. The couple now live in Potomac Yard with their two daughters.

It was in 2012 that he really started to struggle, Charlie said.

“It was actually my first year of law school that I started having a really hard time, especially at night,” Charlie said. “It got to the point where I just couldn’t drive at night.”

Charlie got pulled over one night while driving. Around the same time, Katie said she started to notice other warning signs.

The couple knew things were serious after a friendly racquetball competition turned frightening.

“One night we were playing racquetball, and I’m pretty competitive. I was destroying him, and he was like, ‘Katie, I can’t see the ball’ and I was like, ‘Yeah right,’” Katie said. “I went to toss him the ball … and I threw it just an inch to the left and he didn’t even flinch.”

Katie took Charlie to the emergency room, fearing his vision loss was due to a brain tumor or something life threatening, Katie said. The couple quickly realized that wasn’t the case and began seeing eye doctors.

Eventually, Charlie went to a specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, who dropped the news at Charlie’s feet: He had a degenerative genetic condition.

“After he worked me up and they did all kinds of crazy tests, he’s like, ‘I think you have a genetic disease and you’re going to progressively lose your vision,’” Charlie said. “And he just kind of dropped it on me without any preparation, and I was kind of in shock for the rest of the day.”

Charlie had a million questions, he said. Was he going to be able to continue his work at the law firm? How fast would he lose his vision?

Charlie’s vision had already started progressively fading. He stopped driving in 2013 and started taking the Metro, but blind spots and decreasing detailed vision made even that difficult. Going through Metro stations, Charlie would constantly bump into people, he said.

In the years after his diagnosis, Charlie struggled to adapt to his condition and a new way of life. He started to recede into himself, he said, pulling away from Katie and his coworkers at the law firm. He started to tell himself certain things were just too difficult, Charlie said.

“We have a happy hour every month and I just stopped going because I didn’t feel comfortable,” Charlie said. “‘I’m gonna go in there and I’m not gonna recognize anyone and I’m gonna be making a fool out of myself.’ I was in that kind of negative mindset.”

“More and more he kind of faded away and was throwing himself into his work and making that his thing. We call them the Dark Days,” Katie said. “… We’d go out and he’d kind of get frustrated or he wouldn’t even tell me he was frustrated. But it was clear that he wasn’t enjoying what we were doing.”

Eventually, Charlie’s vision deteriorated to the point where he had to turn to others for help. He started working with the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired and, in April, went down to Richmond for a three month-long training session where he learned how to use assistive technology, text to speech software and a white cane.

Charlie started reaching out to other attorneys in the DMV with visual impairments to learn how they adapted, he said.

Then, in December 2018, Charlie learned of a blind hockey team in Arlington through a coworker, and everything changed, he said.

“People hear blind hockey and they think it’s crazy and I kind of thought the same thing, but she connected me with the team, and I went out and gave it a try,” Charlie said. “… I’ve been hooked on it ever since.”

Having played hockey up until college, it took time for Charlie to adjust to playing the sport in a new way.

In blind hockey, everything from the equipment to the rules have been adjusted to meet the conditions of those with visual impairments. The net is a foot shorter, in order to even the playing field for goalies, who are, by the rules, totally blind. The puck is larger and full of ball bearings so that players can track it by sound.

“One of the biggest adaptations for me is just developing the ability to track the puck audibly rather than visually,” Charlie said. “It took me several months before I could hear the puck sliding and be able to pick it up on my stick without missing it or skating past it.”

The most major rule difference is that when an offensive player enters the offensive zone on the other team’s side, they have to complete at least one pass before taking a shot.

“The ref carries a sound device in his hand and when that pass is completed from offensive player to offensive player in the offensive zone, they will sound the buzzer so all players on the ice, including the goalie, know the pass was good and now it’s about to be coming,” Michael Svac, coach for the USA National Blind Hockey Team, said.

Between his involvement in local blind hockey teams and his time down in Richmond, Charlie’s morale is on the mend, along with his relationship with Katie.

“The three months away [in Richmond] and then blind hockey, I feel like I got my husband back this year,” Katie said. “It’s almost become a blessing in a way – not that I would wish this on anybody – but it’s given us this totally different perspective and made us really thankful for all the little things.”

Seeing Charlie padded up and back out on the ice still brings a tear to her eye, Katie said.

This year, Charlie’s time on the ice has given him something he never dreamed of, even when he was playing sighted hockey: a spot on the USA National Team.

While playing for the D.C. blind hockey team, Charlie travelled to Tampa, Florida in April for an annual disabled ice hockey festival, where he managed to secure a place in the preliminary tryouts for the national team.

In July, Charlie went to a training camp in Utica, New York, the hub of the national team, where the coaches selected the final team lineup. Charlie gave the team strategic and adaptive value, Svac said.

“Charlie gave us a unique ability because I was impressed at camp with his ability to play both offense and defense,” Svac said. “… He has tremendous speed when he gets control of the puck, so it allows him to, one, have a little more vision than others on defense and he also has the ability to be able to skate the puck up ice as opposed to just throwing the puck.”

Although blind hockey has a 40-year history in Canada, it is a relatively new para-sport in the U.S. The sport is growing, with teams in development or established in most major U.S. cities. The national blind hockey program is still limited in terms of resources and funding, but the end goal is to grow the game to the point where it joins the Paralympics in 2026, Svac said.

Just last year, Charlie thought he’d never play hockey again, and now he’s looking to head to the Paralympics. Where he once saw limitations, Charlie now sees possibilities, he said.

“The big difference is if something would have come along a year ago, my default position would have been to say, ‘I can’t do that because of my vision,’” Charlie said. “Now, I’m much more of the mindset of, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.’ I might have to do it a different way – I might have to figure things out – but I’m not just gonna assume I can’t do something because of my vision.”