KILMARNOCK — The Lancaster County Lions Club recently concluded its spring fundraising campaign known as White Cane Days.
“Thanks to the generosity of our neighbors who contributed to this drive, the Lions collected more than $2,300 all of which will go to assisting the blind and visually impaired in our community as well as our other service projects,” said chairman Lion Gary Wood.
“We are especially grateful to the management and employees of the 7-Eleven in White Stone, Tri-Star Supermarket, Tractor Supply and True Value Hardware in Kilmarnock, who hosted our collection points and also provided our Lions with some much-appreciated warm hospitality on what turned out to be a chilly spring weekend,” said Wood.
The blind have historically used canes, but they faced terrifying new challenges in the 20th century as cars replaced carriages on city streets, some without stoplights and crosswalks. The plain walking stick still worked as a way-making tool, but it was useless as a warning sign to motorists. A blind Englishman named James Biggs found an answer in 1921 when he painted his walking stick white, said Wood.
Years later, Illinois Lions Club President George A. Bonham was moved one day in 1930 when he saw a blind man tapping his cane helplessly as traffic swirled around him. No one seemed to notice the man’s dilemma, which set Bonham thinking. The answer again was the white cane, this time with a red band for even greater visibility, continued Wood.
Members of the Peoria Lions Club took up the cause, painting white canes for the blind and writing letters to city officials. In December 1930, the Peoria City Council passed the nation’s first “white cane safety law,” giving blind citizens the right-of-way and other protections when carrying a white cane, he said.
At the 1931 Lions International Convention in Toronto, Lions heard a detailed presentation on the white cane program and received copies of the Peoria ordinance. By 1956, with the help of a full-scale awareness and advocacy campaign by Lions Clubs and others, every state in the U.S. had enacted white cane safety laws, said Wood.
