'We're a beacon of hope and work to give people their optimism back': Beacon Centre for the Blind turns 150
As the West Midlands' oldest sight loss charity celebrates a special anniversary, those who help it run and who have been helped by it have been speaking about what makes it special.
Wolverhampton's Beacon Centre for the Blind has been celebrating 150 years of dedicated support to visually-impaired people.
Beacon is one of the region’s oldest charities, supporting people living with sight loss in innovative ways since 1875, and opened one of the first charity shops in the UK in 1899, right here in Wolverhampton.
From teaching braille in the 1800s to helping people get the most from assistive technology today, Beacon has continued to expand and evolve to meet the changing needs of its community, from practical support and accessible activities to emotional wellbeing and advocacy.
It started life as Wolverhampton Society for the Blind with a purpose of giving local people with sight loss the opportunity to learn to read and write using braille, acquiring a house in 1882 for its members to work and live.
As its reach grew across the region, it changed its name in 1926 to the Wolverhampton, Dudley and Districts Institutions for the Blind and, in 1961, purchased land in Sedgley to build its first centre, with Beacon House opening in 1973.
After becoming officially known as Beacon Centre for the Blind in 1991 and growing the number of services to its name, the current headquarters on Wolverhampton Road East opened to the public in 2009.
The charity has survived tough times over the years, including what it described as its most challenging in 2020 when it was forced to close its doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but through it all, the charity has continued to support its members.
Today, the charity is a vibrant hub of activity, with members able to use a working kitchen with speaking scales, a fully stocked gym, a craft room with a working kiln for pottery, a quiet room and a range of other activities, as well as a vibrant and busy shop on the ground floor.
For chief executive Lisa Cowley, the chance to be at Beacon as it marked 150 years was an honour and she spoke about the challenges that the charity had gone through in her six and a half years in charge, as well as plans for the future.
She said: "I think to be chief executive of any charity is a huge privilege and to be chief executive of a charity like Beacon, which is one of the first charities established in the Black Country and continues to make such a difference, makes me incredibly proud every day.
"I joined in December 2018 and had a huge amount to do in terms of looking at stabilising our organisation and taking it forward, but then we went through Covid, and there are lots of horrendous photos of me living on my camp bed and being in the thick of trying to support our residents as we're a regulated social care provider.
"That experience really did bring us together and brought us into people's minds and it was really heartening to see how much people rallied around and wanted to support us, and they've then seen how we have grown and developed."
