MACON, Ga. — The Georgia Academy for the Blind wants to help its students play tennis. They are teaming up with the United States Tennis Association Southern to show teachers and students how to play blind and visually impaired tennis.
Susan Anglen is familiar with playing tennis. However, she's learning how to play blind tennis after becoming legally blind. She lost her right eye and a portion of her peripheral vision in her left eye.
Anglen believes this workshop will have a life-long impact on the blind and visually impaired.
"Just returning a ball successfully is exhilarating," Anglen said. "It gives me a sense of accomplishment and empowerment and I want other people to have that. If they can do that on the court, they can translate that into every aspect of their life and it will give them confidence."
Jamie Kaplan works in the southern section of the United States Tennis Association. With this workshop, she wants to spread a message.
"We want to show people that tennis is open for everyone," Kaplan said. "If someone [is] blind [or] visually impaired [and] would like to play tennis, we want to show that they can play tennis."
The workshop is split into two days. One day, volunteers, coaches and former players are welcome to learn how to play blind and visually impaired tennis. Then, the next day, they apply what they learned.
"We need volunteers. There are going to be people from the Georgia Academy for the Blind that work there who will be part of the workshop," Kaplan said. "We'll give a four-hour course on Friday afternoon, and then Saturday morning all the students from the Georgia Academy for the Blind will be there and we'll be able to teach them."
Kaplan hopes this is just the beginning of something bigger.
"We hope that this is the beginning of a pilot program that we will spread all around the nine southern states," Kaplan said.
Anglen wants people to look at disabilities differently.
"I want people to know that they don't have to let their challenges or disabilities limit them, but rather they should let them motivate them and achieve their goals," Anglen said.
The two-day workshop will begin Sept. 22 at noon. Registration can be done online here. The deadline to register is Sept. 8.