Ann Arbor Lions Now Observing White Cane Week

Ann Arbor Lions Now Observing White Cane Week
Ann Arbor's Lions Club joins other Lions clubs of the state in observing this as White Cane Week in Michigan, with emphasis on traffic safety for pedestrians carrying white canes as a symbol of blindness or sight difficulties.
An educational program in the Ann Arbor area this week is directed by Dr. Robert S. Ideson of the Lions Club. Courtesy for the blind pedestrian is being stressed in the schools, through the press, radio and television and by posters in stores,
Recognizing the fact that 27,500 persons become blind each year, Lions clubs have made aid for the blind one of their principal projects. Thousands of white canes have been furnished to blind persons in Michigan. State legislation in 1936 granted the right-of-way to persons carrying a white cane, and Lions hope to make every motorist aware of the problem so that he will use unusual caution when he sees a pedestrian with a cane.
The Ann Arbor Lions Club lends financial assistance to needy persons, many of them children, who need eye examinations, glasses or operations on the eyes. The Lions remember blind persons at Thanksgiving and Christmas and furnish Braille' readers. Since 1947, the Lions Club has co-operated with the Ann Arbor firm of Projected Books, Inc., a nonprofit group, to provide ceiling projectors for bedridden patients in hospitals. The club also has helped sponsor projects of the Ann Arbor High School Band for a number of years.
This is the week selected annually by the Lions Club for its white pencil fund drive.