CA High School Creates Gift for Blind Senior: a One-of-a-Kind Braille Yearbook She Can Read

“I’ve ordered a yearbook every year, basically just to be included in the whole end-of-year yearbook signature stuff,” the California teen told The Press Democrat.

So when Windsor High School’s yearbook club surprised her with a Braille yearbook, Vorreiter was thrilled that she could read her senior yearbook all on her own.

“When I got it, I was just so amazed and excited,” Vorreiter said. “I couldn’t wait to see how it was all done. I didn’t know what it would be like.”

Braille yearbook printed at Windsor High School might be the first ever. https://t.co/FQwE3sJ3r9 pic.twitter.com/NyUAT2eSGQ

— Christi Warren (@SeaWarren) November 7, 2016

What it’s like is four volumes, each one three inches thick and printed on 8.5-by-11-inch paper. It’s also very expensive. The yearbook cost $4,000, an expense split between the school and yearbook publisher Walsworth.

Spearheaded by yearbook editor-in-chief Charlie Sparacio, the project was something the school and the publisher had never attempted before. The idea came after the yearbook club won $500 at a summer yearbook camp: The club was looking for a creative way to spend the money, and the idea of a Braille yearbook for Vorreiter was born.

When Sparacio contacted Walsworth, the company had never heard of a yearbook being printed in Braille. That’s largely because of the cost, Sharon Sacks, superintendent at the California School for the Blind, told The Press Democrat.

“I’ve never heard of a school doing that,” Sacks told the paper. “Even we do a print one. In the past, we’ve done an audiotape of what’s in the yearbook, but we’ve never done a Braille version.”

Embossing the TSbVI Braille yearbook with the Index Basic D's. pic.twitter.com/TjRuZVvC8M

— Susan Mattson (@suemmattson) May 28, 2015

A Google search revealed that at least one school, the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, has printed Braille yearbooks. But that is a rare instance, and even advocates for the blind had never heard of the idea before.

“That’s a pretty cool, inclusive gesture,” George Abbott, a representative for the American Foundation for the Blind, told The Press Democrat. “It’s unique. It’s ambitious.”

For her part, Vorreiter may be the first high school student to receive a Braille yearbook, but she hopes she won’t be the last. “It was one of those really awesome moments that I would want to relive again,” she told the paper. “My hope is that in the future, if there are other visually impaired students that go through high school, they get a yearbook for their senior year, too.”