Service Activities brings news to the blind with Radio Reading
- posted: 23 Oct. 2007
- scrollcampus@byui.edu
Every month magazines are distributed to subscribers. Every week Scroll is printed. Every day both local and national newspapers are thrown on porch steps. News is being distributed from all angles, but how do they who are visually impaired get the word?
Here on campus, student volunteers have become the “voice of the media” in southeastern Idaho by volunteering with Radio Reading.
At the beginning of each semester, students can sign up to read local and national news and obituaries over the radio for the visually impaired. Because Radio Reading is a daily broadcast, volunteers sign up for thirty-minute shifts once or twice a week between 5:30 and 9 p.m.
“Radio Reading is an amazing service that practically any student can do here on this campus, and it also reaches out to the community,” said Amanda Ott, a senior studying history education and manager of Radio Reading.
Radio Reading not only covers the Rexburg area, but it extends to most parts of southeastern Idaho, giving those with limited or no eyesight the chance to hear the news.
“Radio Reading is great because it helps those visually impaired to know what kind of things are happening around the world on a daily basis,” Ott said.
Currently there are about thirty volunteers that read the newspapers on a weekly basis. If one time slot happens to be full, or if a volunteer cannot commit to the same time every week, there are backup readers that can be called to fill in at any time.
Students can sign up to read or get more information by contacting Service Activities at reading@byui.edu. 
