JC Greeley

JC was invaluable in advising A Shared Vision's founders as they established and grew this nonprofit and continues to serve as a sounding board to innovate in the delivery of vision services to families.

JC profoundly influenced the field of visual impairment. Throughout her more than 30 year career, she mentored an impressive group of professionals that support children with visual impairments throughout the country. Teachers, therapists, volunteers, and staff who are committed to continual learning and development at all levels. JC inspired a culture that every child’s success or dilemma is felt as if each child is our own.

JC also built close collaboration with ophthalmologists, eye specialists, the medical field, and Colorado’s Community Centered Boards throughout the state to identify and support children with blindness and visual impairments.

JC was instrumental in implementing innovative methods for working with blind children and their families that are now common standards of practice for other programs nationwide. JC thought creatively and encouraged others to do so. She appreciated the intangibles, the things that resonate through our children, that can be felt, moved, heard, tasted, smelled, and seen in indescribable ways. Sensory-rich things that there are no words for. The things some call life forces and others call magic, they are the gifts of blindness.

When JC retired from the Anchor Center for Blind Children, she commented, “There is no way I can thank you all for everything you have given and shared with me. We have always had two guiding principles. One, do what is right for the child — always child first — if it is right for the child, it is right for the family. And two, if it works for visually impaired children, it works for everybody; the reverse is not always true.”

Credit: Anchor Center for Blind Children, Annual Report, 2013-2014.