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In this thought-provoking and deeply human episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan sits down with Aisling Redican, Communications Director and Fundraising Manager at the Xavier Society for the Blind, for an engaging conversation about faith, accessibility, and global inclusion. Aisling shares her personal journey into disability service work and explains how the Xavier Society has, for more than 125 years, quietly ensured that blind and low-vision Catholics around the world have free access to religious materials in Braille, large print, and audio formats. Together, Donna and Aisling unpack what true accessibility means, not as charity, but as dignity, participation, and belonging.
The discussion explores the Society’s worldwide reach, its production of hundreds of thousands of Braille pages annually, and the critical role accessible Mass propers play in enabling blind Catholics to fully participate as lectors, congregants, and clergy. Aisling also reflects on the organization’s evolving work in Spanish-language materials, accessible web design, and future projects such as large-print Roman Missals. Grounded in lived experience and practical advocacy, this episode highlights how sustained commitment, thoughtful design, and listening to blind users can transform faith practice, and serves as a powerful reminder that accessibility is not optional, but essential to an inclusive world.
TRANSCRIPT
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Podcast Commentator: Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA invite you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna Johnson, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the Landmark had a case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to cited ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you will find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets Top back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice, and I invite you to think of the show as your shared workbench where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I’m very pleased and I’m very privileged to welcome Aisling Redican. I hope I got this correctly of the Xavier Society. Welcome to my podcast Aisling, you and I have been connecting and engaging with each other over the last few years. So welcome to my podcast.
Aisling Redican: Thank you so much, Donna, for having me. Yes, we’ve been we’ve been well connected over the years and I’ve really enjoyed listening. To your your introduction there. Very impressive background. But thank you for having me.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You’re very welcome. So let’s get started. Aisling, I’d love to start with you personally. Could you share a bit about your own background and faith journey and how that path eventually led you to the Savior Society for the blind?
Aisling Redican: Sure. So it’s kind of funny. You know, I look back and how I ended up at Xavier Society and it’s kind of like, you know, different, you know, some might say coincidences, some might say it was God winks, you know what have you. But I grew up a cradle Catholic, so I was raised Catholic. I didn’t go to Catholic school. I went to public school here in the United States. So I did religion classes on the weekend and things like that. So I wasn’t, you know, we went to church on Sundays and things like that, but weren’t very, you know my parents are Irish, like, off the boat. So they’re, you know, they’re, you know, culturally, you know, really Catholic, but I wouldn’t say religiously, like, super religious. So I didn’t really grow up, you know, as I, as super religious, but I went to college, I went to NYU. So it wasn’t a religious, you know affiliated university. But I kind of, you know, stuck with, you know, I kept going to mass, kept, you know, doing that. I graduated college with a degree in English. So basically, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. And when I left university, I traveled, which I have a huge interest in and I did everything kind of I wanted to do. And you know, when you’re young and free and things like that. And when I came back to, to the States I was like, all right, I need to get a job.
Aisling Redican: So I had as most, you know, young people do in New York City, I had quite a, a long background in the service industry in you know, waiting tables and bartending and things like that. But I got to about 27, and I was like, you know what? I’m getting kind of old for this. I need to get a real job. Right. And I just kind of stumbled on this, this ad for Xavier Society for the blind. They were looking for someone. A communications and fundraising person. And I didn’t know what that what the fundraising part entailed, but I was like, you know, I have a background in English, so I can I can do the communications part, I think. So and they were looking it was funny in the, in the job description, they were looking for someone who could carry heavy things. And I was like, well, I’m a bartender. I carry stuff up and down stairs all the time. I can do this. So and I’m Catholic, so let me apply for this job. So I applied for it and lo and behold, I got it. And then I realized they needed someone to carry heavy things because there was a hundred Braille Bibles that needed to be transported from one office to another on a different floor. So that was my first week at Xavier Society was moving Braille boxes, Braille Bibles, and as I’m sure you know, Donna the Braille Bible is 45 volumes long.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: So that was a lot of up and down stairs. But anyway, that’s kind of my background with Xavier Society. It’s evolved over the years. I’m more I started off kind of with a client services end of things. I was kind of helping out with that with the woman who used to to be the coordinator at Xavier Society Christine Moore. But she retired, and we had someone else come in and fill the role, and I kind of moved away from the client services end of things and more into fundraising and communication where I am now. But I I supervise the client services department. So I still have you know, a little bit of my foot in the door there.
Aisling Redican: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So for listeners who may be hearing about the Xavier Society for the blind for the very first time, How would you describe its mission and what makes it unique within the Catholic Church, church and the wider blindness community?
Aisling Redican: Well, quite simply, I would just say Xavier Society’s mission is to provide the word of God in accessible formats at no charge to people all over the world in in whatever format that they need. So we provide braille, large print talking books, which are audio books that play on the talking book machines provided by the Library of Congress here in the United States. Yeah. And we also have some downloadable audiobooks because a lot of our clients are outside the United States as well, and they don’t have access to those machines. That’s great. Yeah. So I mean, we’re kind of the only rodeo in town in terms of what we provide one of our largest lines of service is the propers of the Sunday mass, right. Which are essentially, you know, people are kind of like, what is that? So we like to say they’re the missals for mass. And they include the monthly readings, prayers, and responses to the mass on Sundays and special feast days. So those are available in Braille, BRF electronic Braille and large print. And we send those out to just over a thousand people all over the world every single month.
Aisling Redican: And we did a back of the envelope calculation on how many pages that amounted to. So if I’m getting my figures correct, I believe it’s 750,000 Braille pages every year. And let me get this right now, 125,000 large print pages. So it’s a lot. It’s a lot.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: So And we do this all free of charge. And. Yeah, like I said, we’re it’s pretty much the the only rodeo in town doing this. We’ve been doing it for 126 years now. We just celebrated our 125th anniversary last year. But we’re just the biggest issue for us is just kind of, you know, letting people know that we’re here and that we’ve been here and we’re going to be here and just getting the word out. So we appreciate opportunities like this.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So you’ve been with the Xavier Society for the blind for about a decade now.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And from my perspective, and as a blind person, that kind of continuity really matters. How has your role evolved over the years And what does your day to day work as a communications director and fundraising manager look like now?
Aisling Redican: That’s a great question. So when I first started as I as I mentioned previously, I had no background in fundraising. I had no idea what that entailed, what to do? You know, there was this database we were using for finances and you know, lodging donations and things like that. And I had no experience using this. I was like, oh my God, I was thrown in the deep end. But it was it was great because I’ve definitely learned a lot and evolved since then, but I kind of started off as I as I said, more on the client services end of things. So if Christine couldn’t answer the phone, I would pick it up. I’d be talking to clients, taking orders. Different things like that. I helped in the mail room, so getting packages out to patrons getting things in that was that were being sent back to us. So that was kind of when I first started the first few years. That’s kind of what I was doing. And our executive director at the time, he was a Jesuit priest, Father John Sheehan he, he kind of handled the fundraising end of things. He liked to write the appeal letters. He liked to do the newsletters. And so, yeah, the communication ended things, too.
Aisling Redican: He was kind of handling so when his term as executive director ended we had our new executive director and current executive director, Malachy Fallon, come on board. And he was kind of like, all right, you know what? I’m delegating now. So, Aisling, you got to do the newsletters. You got to write the appeal letters. You’ve got to do the fundraising. So he he pretty much threw me in the deep end, which was great because I needed to be challenged. And it was it was nice to have that. So as time has moved on I, as I, as I talked about, I write the appeal letters, I mail them out, I coordinate the mailings with the mailing houses and things like that. I schedule social media posts. I run the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube I send out monthly media blasts and newsletters, things like that. I take all the donations coming in and I have to kind of scan the checks. I have to lodge the donations into our donor management system. So all the boring kind of stuff that you can imagine goes along with the job. So when I, when I talk to people about what I do, I say, oh, I work for a library for the blind.
Aisling Redican: That’s amazing. I’m like, yeah, I don’t do any of the cool stuff like the Braille or the recording the books, but I do, you know, the necessary behind the scenes kind of things. And then I manage a team of two client services coordinators, Saul Buckhalter and Tiffany Edmonds. So they’re great. They, you know, if you call Xavier, you’re most likely to get Saul. But if he’s on another call, you’ll get Tiffany. And they kind of do. Now, what I was doing when I first started. So client services, you know, mail intake and sending stuff out to clients and things like that. And our transcriber, Terence McCafferty he was with us for 19 years. He just retired last month. And so I’m kind of we’re trying to kind of figure out where we’re going to go next in terms like, are we going to get an in-house transcriber or is it going to be something that we outsource to different transcribers across the country? What are we going to do? So I’m kind of helping with that end of things while, you know, while we figure that out. So, as you can imagine, with, with most nonprofits, everyone wears multiple hats. And that definitely rings true for me as well.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Sounds like a very busy person. Are you?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Keeps me out of trouble. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And you also supervise the client services team, which is really and truly the front line for patrons. Can you walk us through how a a typical blind or low vision patron connects with you? And what is the process looking like to get them the braille or the audio or the large print materials that they need?
Aisling Redican: Sure. So typically patrons will call us with requests. That tends to be the most popular way of getting in touch. And I can I can give you our phone numbers if anyone wants to call us toll free. It’s (800) 637-9193. And then we have A212 number as well. So (212) 473-7800. So that tends to be the most popular form of communication with our clients. We also get a lot of emails and people can email us at info at society for the Blind and Xavier’s. So those tend to be the most popular ways that people can call and request materials from us. We also have a lot of patrons who connect with us on social media. So they’ll send us a message on Facebook or Instagram and say, oh, I saw this book that you listed on your page. Can you send it to me? So there’s a number of ways that people can get in touch. We do only send materials to people who are registered with us, and it’s super easy if you’re not registered to get registered. So there’s a number of ways to do it. You can call us up if you receive materials from your local kind of state library for the blind. I know Canada has its Cnib. Is that. Yep. Yeah. Correct. So if if someone receives materials from Cnib or another kind of organization serving the blind and visually impaired, we just need you know, a name, phone number, date of birth and address just to verify that, you know, that they are patrons of those organizations.
Aisling Redican: If if a person is not. Which you know, some people aren’t aware that these materials are available from you know, other, you know, organizations. It’s it’s very easy to register with us. We have a one page application that’s on our website and that’s Xavier Society for the blind. Org. And again Xavier’s Xavier. And that application can be filled out online and emailed to us or snail mails, whatever, whatever is easiest. We also have the application available in Braille that we can mail to you. So yeah, a lot of, you know, Braille readers are interested to know what what’s on the application, what are we asking for? But it’s pretty simple. It’s a name, date of birth, phone number, address, email if you have one. And at the bottom there’s a certification section. So a doctor a diocesan representative or parish priest some other medical professional, social worker, librarian, what have you, someone that can just sign it and say yes. Ashton has has a visual impairment, yada, yada. Or if they, if the person has a form from their doctor or some sort of documentation stating that will take a copy of it. So it’s just for our audit purposes that we need that. And then once you know someone’s registered with us, they can request their hearts away.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. That’s very you know, concise and very easy to follow, right?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. We try to make it as easy as possible to register, you know, like everything’s free. We just we’re trying to get it out to who needs it. So. But we do require that the person is registered with us in order to, to do that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, I know that the Xavier Society for the blind serves thousands of patrons in the United States and in many other countries. From where you sit. What does that global reach actually look like in practice? And what kinds of needs needs are you hearing about from around the globe?
Aisling Redican: That’s a great question, I think. So every December on December 13th, we celebrate the feast of Saint Lucy and patron saint of the blind.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: And we got an email a couple years ago from a gentleman in Singapore. And he sent me a photo of him lecturing, using our braille mass propers in in his parish on the feast of Saint Lucy, his parish celebrated, you know, an identical mass that we were celebrating. And it was just amazing to see, like, the global reach of, like, not just our offerings because we’re just transcribing, you know, the word of God. It’s not like we’re it’s not us, you know, coming up with these materials. We’re just making it accessible. Yeah, but it’s just it just was so beautiful to see that in practice. And we hear, like, all the time, a lot of our clients like, this gentleman in Singapore, are lectors at their parishes, and, you know, they. It’s just amazing to see how something we think is, you know, we do this monthly and it kind of goes over your head, but when you hear about how much it touches people and how much it means to them to receive these materials each and every month so that they can practice and participate in their faith. It’s it’s amazing. And so that for me is that for me brings like that global impact and makes it aware, makes me aware of like how much Xavier Society means to our patrons, not just here in the States or in Canada, but in Singapore, in Ireland, in Australia and all these other, you know, far flung places that you wouldn’t think, you know think would benefit from something like this. But so there’s that and then there’s one of our biggest lines of service is also transcribing faith formation textbooks for young children.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Aisling Redican: So, yeah, so children in CCD and and adults who are, you know preparing to enter the faith as well. And so we make textbooks available and so and our, our foundress, Margaret Coffey, back in 1900, the reason that she wanted to establish Savior Society for the blind was that she she herself was a blind teacher of blind children, and those children did not have access to faith formation materials. So she wanted them to, to have, you know, access to the same things that decided kids had access to. And then 126 years later, we’re still doing that. All over the globe. So it’s just it’s we’re small, but we’re mighty. So that’s that’s what we like to say. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. 126 years. Isn’t that something?
Aisling Redican: I know, it’s amazing. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: One of the things that fascinates me is your library of more than 3000 titles. How do you and your colleagues decide which books to add in braille or audio, and what kinds of spiritual or inspirational works are most in demand from your patrons?
Aisling Redican: Well, that’s a great question as well. So over the last couple of years, we’ve been trying to focus on client requests. So a lot of our clients will call or email. They’ll say, hi, my parish is doing this. Books, book club or Bible study. And they’re reading this book in print. Can you make it available in Braille? So we try to focus our attention on on doing that, especially because those things have tight deadlines. So there’s that a lot of it is student textbooks, as I mentioned. So May is a very busy time for us. We’re in the middle of, you know, getting textbooks ready for the next school year.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Aisling Redican: Things like that. What else? A client might call up and say, hey, I was listening to EWTN, and I heard about this great book. Can you make it available in audio or Braille or anything like that? So that’s really been our focus over the last couple of years. And then if we find ourselves with a little bit of spare time, you know, we might look on the Catholic Publishers Association’s website to see, you know, what’s new or what’s popular, what’s trending, and and make that available in whatever format. And then, you know, in terms of what is kind of, you know, forever popular with, with our clients is you know, anything on the rosary? The saints kind of like, tried and tested Catholic, you know Catholic books. I’m trying to think anything on Mary Marian apparitions. Yeah. Any any kind of of those those tried and tested Catholic titles you can think of are probably in in our wheelhouse.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know three books that stand out for me that I have ordered from you. One is called lent with the saints and then advent with the saints. I also got a book on Mother Teresa on the miraculous medals, and I was so pleased when I suggested, you know, to the Xavier Society that there is a book called With God All Things Are Possible, and you guys brailled it.
Aisling Redican: Yeah. We taught, you know, if it’s in in the past, we’ve been kind of doing things ad hoc and what we think our, our clients might like. But, you know, we kind of came to the conclusion, like, if our clients are asking for these things, then we should, you know, that’s what we’re here for. Let’s let’s make it. Let’s make it happen.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That makes sense you know.
Aisling Redican: Yeah. Yeah. And if you if it’s something that you’re going to like then most likely it’s something you know others are going to like right.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Now as a blind Catholic myself, I understand how vital accessible mass materials are. Could you explain the propers of the mass service that you provide and how it works, and what it means for blind and low vision Catholics who want to fully participate in Sunday liturgy?
Aisling Redican: Sure. So the easy answer to that is we refer to the propers of the Sunday Mass as essentially the Missal. So it includes not just the readings, prayers, and responses to the mass on Sundays and feast days, but it also has other parts of the mass in there. Like I’m going to get kind of Catholic on on everyone. Now, the collect the entrance antiphon, the prayer after communion. Yeah. And other kind of bits of the mass. That change from week to week. So we serve a lot of priests and they use the propers to celebrate mass. A lot of our clients who receive these in Braille or large print lector at, at church. So that means they get up and they, they read the first reading or the second reading.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Aisling Redican: Or the responsorial psalm, if that’s done in their parish. And it just we hear all the time how it just the propers are so essential to the faith practice of our patrons. Yeah. You know, without them, they wouldn’t be able to follow along at mass or they wouldn’t be able to lector. Or if they’re a priest, they wouldn’t be able to celebrate the mass. So they’re just it’s it’s it’s it’s our biggest line of service. Without a doubt. And it just means a lot to the people we serve. And I read an article recently on one of our clients in California, and she was talking about how she was lecturing at the Easter Vigil. And people came up to her after mass and they must not, you know, have realized she was blind or whatever. And they said, did you memorize the readings? And she said, she said, no, because the Easter Vigil is is in the dark for those who don’t know. But so she and she, she kind of laughed. She goes, no, I was reading Braille. So she read really, really well but yeah, I know the propers are just you know, something we’ve been doing for for decades, and it’s not available from any other source at any price, and we do it for free. So it’s it’s a blessing to be able to, to make those available to, to whoever needs them.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I sure need them. And I use them all the time. You know, it’s just amazing. I feel I feel closer to God when when I read these things. And I’m very, very thankful and very appreciative. Thank you.
Aisling Redican: No, it’s our pleasure.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. You’ve helped to expand Spanish language Spanish language offerings in both braille and audio. What prompted that focus and what have you put in place so far, and what kinds of responses have you received from Spanish speaking patrons and communities? A mouthful there.
Aisling Redican: Yeah. So, you know the Spanish speaking population is the fastest growing population, not just in the United States, but here in the Catholic Church in the United States. And it’s probably the same in Canada. I’m not sure. But so we thought, you know, we thought it would be best to make things available in Braille and talking book. So we currently we have we have one book available in Braille, and we have about 15 available in talking book. So we kind of spearheaded this about five years ago, thinking there would be quite a large demand. And it’s been kind of slow, to be honest with you. The response and I think it’s just kind of just getting the word out and, you know, not that we haven’t trying to trying to do that, but maybe between, you know, Covid and everything that kind of, you know, when we initially started doing the Spanish materials, maybe that kind of put a damper on things. But you know, we serve a lot of people in Puerto Rico, in Texas California, Florida kind of states with large Hispanic communities. So a lot of them, a lot of people in those states get our materials in Spanish. We also provide the lectures. So it’s not really the proper of the mass. It’s just the readings. For Sundays only. In BRF only as well. So we don’t do it in hard copy Braille, but it’s in BRF for anyone with a Braille display. So we, you know, we have maybe 1 or 2 people every month registering for Spanish materials, but it’s it’s been it’s been I don’t think it’s been as quick to develop as we originally hoped, but hopefully in the future, more people you know that hear about us will register.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah, I think so, yeah. Now my clock is starting to wind down. But I wanted to ask you this question. You led a major redesign of the Xavier Society’s website with accessibility front and center from your perspective. Okay. As a sighted communications professional, what did you learn through that process about web accessibility and how did feedback from blind users shape the final product?
Aisling Redican: So that is another great question. So our website, when I first came to Xavier Society for the blind, was a mess, to put it lightly. It it was very hard to use even as a sighted person. I was like, is this a legit website? Like, oh dear. Yeah, it was one of those. So in 2019, I believe we decided to completely redesign the website. We hired a company out of Vermont who had a background in making websites accessible and things like that. And they had done a number of, of websites for other organizations serving people with disabilities. So you know, we had some good references there to, to check on, but they helped us redevelop the website and do other things just to make it more visually appealing and accessible. Which is more important? So it’s a work in progress. Donna you know, we hear from time to time, you know, clients will say, oh, I was unable to find, you know, your catalog or I didn’t know where to find the new Braille books, things like that. So those little things are is great. They’re great feedback for us. So we’re able to kind of enhance and make it more user friendly for our clients. And I think we’re we’re going to be doing a little refresh to the website this year or maybe next year again. So but accessibility is always kind of top priority for us. And even, you know, we’re trying to, you know, make sure they’re accessible now and our, our, our application, that’s like the number one goal for us this year is to make that completely accessible. So yeah our, our director of technology, he’s constantly on webinars and you know doing things, trying to to see what can be done and to, to make that better. But yeah. So it’s, it’s a work in progress. I’ll just say that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think it’s great. I mean, you know, like for me, I’m an accessibility consultant to the Canadian government. And I’m always so pleased when when people recognize that accessibility means that you are able to independently access the website, navigate it, and use it without much assistance, if at all. So I think it’s great and I applaud your efforts in doing this. I wanted to sneak this question by you. Social media has become a big part of how organizations sell their stories. How are you using platforms like Facebook, Instagram X, and YouTube to highlight the experiences of blind and low vision Catholics and to connect donors with the impact of their support?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. So I think, you know, the the big, you know, word here is connection. So, you know, we’re connecting with our patrons, we’re connecting with our donors and we’re connecting them to kind of each other. Right. So our donors can see, you know, every day we’re posting, you know, 3 or 4 times a day, you know, the materials we’re making available free of charge thanks to our donor support. This is who’s receiving them. This is how it’s impacting the development and practice of their faith. So it’s it’s it’s selling the story. And so from, from a fundraising kind of point of view the impact of donors kind of seeing, you know, where they’re where their money’s, you know, what their money’s doing is, is kind of it’s it’s important. And then from a patrons or clients point of view, you know, they want to know what’s what’s new, what’s happening, what’s what’s the organization up to who we share client stories as well. So they get to, you know, read about, you know, people they might actually know. Because the blind community is super small and the blind Catholic community is even smaller. So a lot of them know each other. So yeah, social media is huge for us. We’re on Facebook. Instagram. They’re they’re probably our top two platforms.
Aisling Redican: We use Twitter a lot as well. Not to really the extent that Facebook and Instagram not to the same extent, but and then YouTube we use for like every month we’ll upload some kind of video highlights of new audiobooks that we’ve done. So we’ll upload like a three minute clip so people can hear it. They can get a little taste of what the talking books about. And then if they like it, they can call us or email us to order it. So that’s what we use kind of YouTube for. But Facebook and Instagram are probably our, our biggest platforms in terms of social media. And it’s also great for, for kind of finding new patrons or reconnecting with patrons who’ve lost touch. You know, if they see something shared by someone and. Oh, yeah, Xavier Society, I remember them or. Oh, I’ve never heard about these guys before. They provide free, free Braille and audiobooks. Awesome. I want to reach out to them. So they’re. Yeah. Social media. I’m always amazed, like how 40, 50 years ago, how people kind of found out about us because. Yeah, it’s not like we were, you know, being shouted from the rooftops or anything. Yeah, yeah. So it’s amazing. Yeah. We love social media.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: One of my final questions is this one, do you have any specific projects that you are working on that you would like to tell our listeners about?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. I don’t know if I’m giving anything away here, but.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Any top secrets?
Aisling Redican: Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe I can announce this, but we are working to make the Roman missile available in large print at the minute. Yeah. So as you can imagine, you know, a lot of priests, the the average age is kind of skewing older. And a lot of, you know, older priests are losing their vision and things like that, but they’re not going to learn Braille. They’re not going to. Right, right. You know, they’re not going to be able to use you know, audiobook player at the altar or anything like that. So they’re more comfortable with print, but they just need something big enough to see. So we are in the process of, I guess, getting the rights and making sure everything’s good on that end to make it available in large print and maybe sometime in the future. But I’m not gonna, you know, I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up yet, but that’s kind of the aim. With that, I’m trying to think, what else do we got going on in the pipeline? There’s a lot, you know, we’re just trying to keep up with the technology.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And yeah.
Aisling Redican: It’s everything is just going crazy fast.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: But we’re trying to, to find a way to kind of automate our processes. So we’re working with a company called Daisy pipeline, and we hope to be able to kind of sometime in the future, use that to kind of automate our Braille and hopefully audio production. But but it’s in the very kind of baby infant stages.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I am certainly impressed with the work that the society has done on the part that it has played in my life personally. I continue to read your books. I continue to engage with with your staff and your team. And I want to thank you for having done this for, you know, free of charge. I mean, like, my goodness, it it must take a lot of donor ships in order to get everything done, would you say?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. And, you know, we’re we’re super blessed to not just serve you, Donna, but all of our our clients free of charge, thanks to thanks to our faithful donor base. And that’s it’s it’s, you know, a mix of individual donors. We have a lot of clients like yourself who support us small family foundations that that donate to us and bequests as well. So yeah, we you know, we’re very blessed to have been able to do what we do for 126 years. But it is not it ain’t cheap that way. And but again we have a very faithful donor base who kind of ensure that, you know, we keep chugging along.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, if someone wanted to contact you, could you give us the phone numbers once more in the website?
Aisling Redican: Absolutely. So again, it’s our website is https://XavierSocietyForTheBlind.org. That’s X A V I E R Society for the Blind.org. Our email is Info@XavierSocietyForTheBlind.org. And then our phone numbers. We have a toll free one which is (800) 637-9193 and a 212 area code which is (212) 473-7800. And yeah, be sure to follow us on, on Facebook and Instagram or whatever platform you use because, you know, that’s where you hear all that’s new. You get to hear some client stories and, you know, other news pertaining to the organization.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Aisling, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been a privilege. And if ever you wanted to come back to talk about anything that you’re doing or any announcement that you’d like to make, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
Aisling Redican: Well, thank you so much again, Donna. This has been a real pleasure. And yeah, we appreciate your help getting the word out.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you very much. And you take care and we will talk to you again very soon.
Aisling Redican: All right, Donna, thank you, thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Bye bye now. Bye bye.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at DonnaJodhan@Gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
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Remarkable World Commentary Episode #73: Interview with Aisling Redican, Communications Director and Fundraising Manager, Xavier Society for the Blind
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In this thought-provoking and deeply human episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan sits down with Aisling Redican, Communications Director and Fundraising Manager at the Xavier Society for the Blind, for an engaging conversation about faith, accessibility, and global inclusion. Aisling shares her personal journey into disability service work and explains how the Xavier Society has, for more than 125 years, quietly ensured that blind and low-vision Catholics around the world have free access to religious materials in Braille, large print, and audio formats. Together, Donna and Aisling unpack what true accessibility means, not as charity, but as dignity, participation, and belonging.
The discussion explores the Society’s worldwide reach, its production of hundreds of thousands of Braille pages annually, and the critical role accessible Mass propers play in enabling blind Catholics to fully participate as lectors, congregants, and clergy. Aisling also reflects on the organization’s evolving work in Spanish-language materials, accessible web design, and future projects such as large-print Roman Missals. Grounded in lived experience and practical advocacy, this episode highlights how sustained commitment, thoughtful design, and listening to blind users can transform faith practice, and serves as a powerful reminder that accessibility is not optional, but essential to an inclusive world.
TRANSCRIPT
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Podcast Commentator: Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA invite you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna Johnson, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the Landmark had a case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to cited ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you will find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets Top back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice, and I invite you to think of the show as your shared workbench where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I’m very pleased and I’m very privileged to welcome Aisling Redican. I hope I got this correctly of the Xavier Society. Welcome to my podcast Aisling, you and I have been connecting and engaging with each other over the last few years. So welcome to my podcast.
Aisling Redican: Thank you so much, Donna, for having me. Yes, we’ve been we’ve been well connected over the years and I’ve really enjoyed listening. To your your introduction there. Very impressive background. But thank you for having me.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You’re very welcome. So let’s get started. Aisling, I’d love to start with you personally. Could you share a bit about your own background and faith journey and how that path eventually led you to the Savior Society for the blind?
Aisling Redican: Sure. So it’s kind of funny. You know, I look back and how I ended up at Xavier Society and it’s kind of like, you know, different, you know, some might say coincidences, some might say it was God winks, you know what have you. But I grew up a cradle Catholic, so I was raised Catholic. I didn’t go to Catholic school. I went to public school here in the United States. So I did religion classes on the weekend and things like that. So I wasn’t, you know, we went to church on Sundays and things like that, but weren’t very, you know my parents are Irish, like, off the boat. So they’re, you know, they’re, you know, culturally, you know, really Catholic, but I wouldn’t say religiously, like, super religious. So I didn’t really grow up, you know, as I, as super religious, but I went to college, I went to NYU. So it wasn’t a religious, you know affiliated university. But I kind of, you know, stuck with, you know, I kept going to mass, kept, you know, doing that. I graduated college with a degree in English. So basically, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. And when I left university, I traveled, which I have a huge interest in and I did everything kind of I wanted to do. And you know, when you’re young and free and things like that. And when I came back to, to the States I was like, all right, I need to get a job.
Aisling Redican: So I had as most, you know, young people do in New York City, I had quite a, a long background in the service industry in you know, waiting tables and bartending and things like that. But I got to about 27, and I was like, you know what? I’m getting kind of old for this. I need to get a real job. Right. And I just kind of stumbled on this, this ad for Xavier Society for the blind. They were looking for someone. A communications and fundraising person. And I didn’t know what that what the fundraising part entailed, but I was like, you know, I have a background in English, so I can I can do the communications part, I think. So and they were looking it was funny in the, in the job description, they were looking for someone who could carry heavy things. And I was like, well, I’m a bartender. I carry stuff up and down stairs all the time. I can do this. So and I’m Catholic, so let me apply for this job. So I applied for it and lo and behold, I got it. And then I realized they needed someone to carry heavy things because there was a hundred Braille Bibles that needed to be transported from one office to another on a different floor. So that was my first week at Xavier Society was moving Braille boxes, Braille Bibles, and as I’m sure you know, Donna the Braille Bible is 45 volumes long.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: So that was a lot of up and down stairs. But anyway, that’s kind of my background with Xavier Society. It’s evolved over the years. I’m more I started off kind of with a client services end of things. I was kind of helping out with that with the woman who used to to be the coordinator at Xavier Society Christine Moore. But she retired, and we had someone else come in and fill the role, and I kind of moved away from the client services end of things and more into fundraising and communication where I am now. But I I supervise the client services department. So I still have you know, a little bit of my foot in the door there.
Aisling Redican: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So for listeners who may be hearing about the Xavier Society for the blind for the very first time, How would you describe its mission and what makes it unique within the Catholic Church, church and the wider blindness community?
Aisling Redican: Well, quite simply, I would just say Xavier Society’s mission is to provide the word of God in accessible formats at no charge to people all over the world in in whatever format that they need. So we provide braille, large print talking books, which are audio books that play on the talking book machines provided by the Library of Congress here in the United States. Yeah. And we also have some downloadable audiobooks because a lot of our clients are outside the United States as well, and they don’t have access to those machines. That’s great. Yeah. So I mean, we’re kind of the only rodeo in town in terms of what we provide one of our largest lines of service is the propers of the Sunday mass, right. Which are essentially, you know, people are kind of like, what is that? So we like to say they’re the missals for mass. And they include the monthly readings, prayers, and responses to the mass on Sundays and special feast days. So those are available in Braille, BRF electronic Braille and large print. And we send those out to just over a thousand people all over the world every single month.
Aisling Redican: And we did a back of the envelope calculation on how many pages that amounted to. So if I’m getting my figures correct, I believe it’s 750,000 Braille pages every year. And let me get this right now, 125,000 large print pages. So it’s a lot. It’s a lot.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: So And we do this all free of charge. And. Yeah, like I said, we’re it’s pretty much the the only rodeo in town doing this. We’ve been doing it for 126 years now. We just celebrated our 125th anniversary last year. But we’re just the biggest issue for us is just kind of, you know, letting people know that we’re here and that we’ve been here and we’re going to be here and just getting the word out. So we appreciate opportunities like this.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So you’ve been with the Xavier Society for the blind for about a decade now.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And from my perspective, and as a blind person, that kind of continuity really matters. How has your role evolved over the years And what does your day to day work as a communications director and fundraising manager look like now?
Aisling Redican: That’s a great question. So when I first started as I as I mentioned previously, I had no background in fundraising. I had no idea what that entailed, what to do? You know, there was this database we were using for finances and you know, lodging donations and things like that. And I had no experience using this. I was like, oh my God, I was thrown in the deep end. But it was it was great because I’ve definitely learned a lot and evolved since then, but I kind of started off as I as I said, more on the client services end of things. So if Christine couldn’t answer the phone, I would pick it up. I’d be talking to clients, taking orders. Different things like that. I helped in the mail room, so getting packages out to patrons getting things in that was that were being sent back to us. So that was kind of when I first started the first few years. That’s kind of what I was doing. And our executive director at the time, he was a Jesuit priest, Father John Sheehan he, he kind of handled the fundraising end of things. He liked to write the appeal letters. He liked to do the newsletters. And so, yeah, the communication ended things, too.
Aisling Redican: He was kind of handling so when his term as executive director ended we had our new executive director and current executive director, Malachy Fallon, come on board. And he was kind of like, all right, you know what? I’m delegating now. So, Aisling, you got to do the newsletters. You got to write the appeal letters. You’ve got to do the fundraising. So he he pretty much threw me in the deep end, which was great because I needed to be challenged. And it was it was nice to have that. So as time has moved on I, as I, as I talked about, I write the appeal letters, I mail them out, I coordinate the mailings with the mailing houses and things like that. I schedule social media posts. I run the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube I send out monthly media blasts and newsletters, things like that. I take all the donations coming in and I have to kind of scan the checks. I have to lodge the donations into our donor management system. So all the boring kind of stuff that you can imagine goes along with the job. So when I, when I talk to people about what I do, I say, oh, I work for a library for the blind.
Aisling Redican: That’s amazing. I’m like, yeah, I don’t do any of the cool stuff like the Braille or the recording the books, but I do, you know, the necessary behind the scenes kind of things. And then I manage a team of two client services coordinators, Saul Buckhalter and Tiffany Edmonds. So they’re great. They, you know, if you call Xavier, you’re most likely to get Saul. But if he’s on another call, you’ll get Tiffany. And they kind of do. Now, what I was doing when I first started. So client services, you know, mail intake and sending stuff out to clients and things like that. And our transcriber, Terence McCafferty he was with us for 19 years. He just retired last month. And so I’m kind of we’re trying to kind of figure out where we’re going to go next in terms like, are we going to get an in-house transcriber or is it going to be something that we outsource to different transcribers across the country? What are we going to do? So I’m kind of helping with that end of things while, you know, while we figure that out. So, as you can imagine, with, with most nonprofits, everyone wears multiple hats. And that definitely rings true for me as well.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Sounds like a very busy person. Are you?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Keeps me out of trouble. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And you also supervise the client services team, which is really and truly the front line for patrons. Can you walk us through how a a typical blind or low vision patron connects with you? And what is the process looking like to get them the braille or the audio or the large print materials that they need?
Aisling Redican: Sure. So typically patrons will call us with requests. That tends to be the most popular way of getting in touch. And I can I can give you our phone numbers if anyone wants to call us toll free. It’s (800) 637-9193. And then we have A212 number as well. So (212) 473-7800. So that tends to be the most popular form of communication with our clients. We also get a lot of emails and people can email us at info at society for the Blind and Xavier’s. So those tend to be the most popular ways that people can call and request materials from us. We also have a lot of patrons who connect with us on social media. So they’ll send us a message on Facebook or Instagram and say, oh, I saw this book that you listed on your page. Can you send it to me? So there’s a number of ways that people can get in touch. We do only send materials to people who are registered with us, and it’s super easy if you’re not registered to get registered. So there’s a number of ways to do it. You can call us up if you receive materials from your local kind of state library for the blind. I know Canada has its Cnib. Is that. Yep. Yeah. Correct. So if if someone receives materials from Cnib or another kind of organization serving the blind and visually impaired, we just need you know, a name, phone number, date of birth and address just to verify that, you know, that they are patrons of those organizations.
Aisling Redican: If if a person is not. Which you know, some people aren’t aware that these materials are available from you know, other, you know, organizations. It’s it’s very easy to register with us. We have a one page application that’s on our website and that’s Xavier Society for the blind. Org. And again Xavier’s Xavier. And that application can be filled out online and emailed to us or snail mails, whatever, whatever is easiest. We also have the application available in Braille that we can mail to you. So yeah, a lot of, you know, Braille readers are interested to know what what’s on the application, what are we asking for? But it’s pretty simple. It’s a name, date of birth, phone number, address, email if you have one. And at the bottom there’s a certification section. So a doctor a diocesan representative or parish priest some other medical professional, social worker, librarian, what have you, someone that can just sign it and say yes. Ashton has has a visual impairment, yada, yada. Or if they, if the person has a form from their doctor or some sort of documentation stating that will take a copy of it. So it’s just for our audit purposes that we need that. And then once you know someone’s registered with us, they can request their hearts away.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. That’s very you know, concise and very easy to follow, right?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. We try to make it as easy as possible to register, you know, like everything’s free. We just we’re trying to get it out to who needs it. So. But we do require that the person is registered with us in order to, to do that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, I know that the Xavier Society for the blind serves thousands of patrons in the United States and in many other countries. From where you sit. What does that global reach actually look like in practice? And what kinds of needs needs are you hearing about from around the globe?
Aisling Redican: That’s a great question, I think. So every December on December 13th, we celebrate the feast of Saint Lucy and patron saint of the blind.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: And we got an email a couple years ago from a gentleman in Singapore. And he sent me a photo of him lecturing, using our braille mass propers in in his parish on the feast of Saint Lucy, his parish celebrated, you know, an identical mass that we were celebrating. And it was just amazing to see, like, the global reach of, like, not just our offerings because we’re just transcribing, you know, the word of God. It’s not like we’re it’s not us, you know, coming up with these materials. We’re just making it accessible. Yeah, but it’s just it just was so beautiful to see that in practice. And we hear, like, all the time, a lot of our clients like, this gentleman in Singapore, are lectors at their parishes, and, you know, they. It’s just amazing to see how something we think is, you know, we do this monthly and it kind of goes over your head, but when you hear about how much it touches people and how much it means to them to receive these materials each and every month so that they can practice and participate in their faith. It’s it’s amazing. And so that for me is that for me brings like that global impact and makes it aware, makes me aware of like how much Xavier Society means to our patrons, not just here in the States or in Canada, but in Singapore, in Ireland, in Australia and all these other, you know, far flung places that you wouldn’t think, you know think would benefit from something like this. But so there’s that and then there’s one of our biggest lines of service is also transcribing faith formation textbooks for young children.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Aisling Redican: So, yeah, so children in CCD and and adults who are, you know preparing to enter the faith as well. And so we make textbooks available and so and our, our foundress, Margaret Coffey, back in 1900, the reason that she wanted to establish Savior Society for the blind was that she she herself was a blind teacher of blind children, and those children did not have access to faith formation materials. So she wanted them to, to have, you know, access to the same things that decided kids had access to. And then 126 years later, we’re still doing that. All over the globe. So it’s just it’s we’re small, but we’re mighty. So that’s that’s what we like to say. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. 126 years. Isn’t that something?
Aisling Redican: I know, it’s amazing. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: One of the things that fascinates me is your library of more than 3000 titles. How do you and your colleagues decide which books to add in braille or audio, and what kinds of spiritual or inspirational works are most in demand from your patrons?
Aisling Redican: Well, that’s a great question as well. So over the last couple of years, we’ve been trying to focus on client requests. So a lot of our clients will call or email. They’ll say, hi, my parish is doing this. Books, book club or Bible study. And they’re reading this book in print. Can you make it available in Braille? So we try to focus our attention on on doing that, especially because those things have tight deadlines. So there’s that a lot of it is student textbooks, as I mentioned. So May is a very busy time for us. We’re in the middle of, you know, getting textbooks ready for the next school year.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Aisling Redican: Things like that. What else? A client might call up and say, hey, I was listening to EWTN, and I heard about this great book. Can you make it available in audio or Braille or anything like that? So that’s really been our focus over the last couple of years. And then if we find ourselves with a little bit of spare time, you know, we might look on the Catholic Publishers Association’s website to see, you know, what’s new or what’s popular, what’s trending, and and make that available in whatever format. And then, you know, in terms of what is kind of, you know, forever popular with, with our clients is you know, anything on the rosary? The saints kind of like, tried and tested Catholic, you know Catholic books. I’m trying to think anything on Mary Marian apparitions. Yeah. Any any kind of of those those tried and tested Catholic titles you can think of are probably in in our wheelhouse.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know three books that stand out for me that I have ordered from you. One is called lent with the saints and then advent with the saints. I also got a book on Mother Teresa on the miraculous medals, and I was so pleased when I suggested, you know, to the Xavier Society that there is a book called With God All Things Are Possible, and you guys brailled it.
Aisling Redican: Yeah. We taught, you know, if it’s in in the past, we’ve been kind of doing things ad hoc and what we think our, our clients might like. But, you know, we kind of came to the conclusion, like, if our clients are asking for these things, then we should, you know, that’s what we’re here for. Let’s let’s make it. Let’s make it happen.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That makes sense you know.
Aisling Redican: Yeah. Yeah. And if you if it’s something that you’re going to like then most likely it’s something you know others are going to like right.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Now as a blind Catholic myself, I understand how vital accessible mass materials are. Could you explain the propers of the mass service that you provide and how it works, and what it means for blind and low vision Catholics who want to fully participate in Sunday liturgy?
Aisling Redican: Sure. So the easy answer to that is we refer to the propers of the Sunday Mass as essentially the Missal. So it includes not just the readings, prayers, and responses to the mass on Sundays and feast days, but it also has other parts of the mass in there. Like I’m going to get kind of Catholic on on everyone. Now, the collect the entrance antiphon, the prayer after communion. Yeah. And other kind of bits of the mass. That change from week to week. So we serve a lot of priests and they use the propers to celebrate mass. A lot of our clients who receive these in Braille or large print lector at, at church. So that means they get up and they, they read the first reading or the second reading.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Aisling Redican: Or the responsorial psalm, if that’s done in their parish. And it just we hear all the time how it just the propers are so essential to the faith practice of our patrons. Yeah. You know, without them, they wouldn’t be able to follow along at mass or they wouldn’t be able to lector. Or if they’re a priest, they wouldn’t be able to celebrate the mass. So they’re just it’s it’s it’s it’s our biggest line of service. Without a doubt. And it just means a lot to the people we serve. And I read an article recently on one of our clients in California, and she was talking about how she was lecturing at the Easter Vigil. And people came up to her after mass and they must not, you know, have realized she was blind or whatever. And they said, did you memorize the readings? And she said, she said, no, because the Easter Vigil is is in the dark for those who don’t know. But so she and she, she kind of laughed. She goes, no, I was reading Braille. So she read really, really well but yeah, I know the propers are just you know, something we’ve been doing for for decades, and it’s not available from any other source at any price, and we do it for free. So it’s it’s a blessing to be able to, to make those available to, to whoever needs them.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I sure need them. And I use them all the time. You know, it’s just amazing. I feel I feel closer to God when when I read these things. And I’m very, very thankful and very appreciative. Thank you.
Aisling Redican: No, it’s our pleasure.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. You’ve helped to expand Spanish language Spanish language offerings in both braille and audio. What prompted that focus and what have you put in place so far, and what kinds of responses have you received from Spanish speaking patrons and communities? A mouthful there.
Aisling Redican: Yeah. So, you know the Spanish speaking population is the fastest growing population, not just in the United States, but here in the Catholic Church in the United States. And it’s probably the same in Canada. I’m not sure. But so we thought, you know, we thought it would be best to make things available in Braille and talking book. So we currently we have we have one book available in Braille, and we have about 15 available in talking book. So we kind of spearheaded this about five years ago, thinking there would be quite a large demand. And it’s been kind of slow, to be honest with you. The response and I think it’s just kind of just getting the word out and, you know, not that we haven’t trying to trying to do that, but maybe between, you know, Covid and everything that kind of, you know, when we initially started doing the Spanish materials, maybe that kind of put a damper on things. But you know, we serve a lot of people in Puerto Rico, in Texas California, Florida kind of states with large Hispanic communities. So a lot of them, a lot of people in those states get our materials in Spanish. We also provide the lectures. So it’s not really the proper of the mass. It’s just the readings. For Sundays only. In BRF only as well. So we don’t do it in hard copy Braille, but it’s in BRF for anyone with a Braille display. So we, you know, we have maybe 1 or 2 people every month registering for Spanish materials, but it’s it’s been it’s been I don’t think it’s been as quick to develop as we originally hoped, but hopefully in the future, more people you know that hear about us will register.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah, I think so, yeah. Now my clock is starting to wind down. But I wanted to ask you this question. You led a major redesign of the Xavier Society’s website with accessibility front and center from your perspective. Okay. As a sighted communications professional, what did you learn through that process about web accessibility and how did feedback from blind users shape the final product?
Aisling Redican: So that is another great question. So our website, when I first came to Xavier Society for the blind, was a mess, to put it lightly. It it was very hard to use even as a sighted person. I was like, is this a legit website? Like, oh dear. Yeah, it was one of those. So in 2019, I believe we decided to completely redesign the website. We hired a company out of Vermont who had a background in making websites accessible and things like that. And they had done a number of, of websites for other organizations serving people with disabilities. So you know, we had some good references there to, to check on, but they helped us redevelop the website and do other things just to make it more visually appealing and accessible. Which is more important? So it’s a work in progress. Donna you know, we hear from time to time, you know, clients will say, oh, I was unable to find, you know, your catalog or I didn’t know where to find the new Braille books, things like that. So those little things are is great. They’re great feedback for us. So we’re able to kind of enhance and make it more user friendly for our clients. And I think we’re we’re going to be doing a little refresh to the website this year or maybe next year again. So but accessibility is always kind of top priority for us. And even, you know, we’re trying to, you know, make sure they’re accessible now and our, our, our application, that’s like the number one goal for us this year is to make that completely accessible. So yeah our, our director of technology, he’s constantly on webinars and you know doing things, trying to to see what can be done and to, to make that better. But yeah. So it’s, it’s a work in progress. I’ll just say that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think it’s great. I mean, you know, like for me, I’m an accessibility consultant to the Canadian government. And I’m always so pleased when when people recognize that accessibility means that you are able to independently access the website, navigate it, and use it without much assistance, if at all. So I think it’s great and I applaud your efforts in doing this. I wanted to sneak this question by you. Social media has become a big part of how organizations sell their stories. How are you using platforms like Facebook, Instagram X, and YouTube to highlight the experiences of blind and low vision Catholics and to connect donors with the impact of their support?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. So I think, you know, the the big, you know, word here is connection. So, you know, we’re connecting with our patrons, we’re connecting with our donors and we’re connecting them to kind of each other. Right. So our donors can see, you know, every day we’re posting, you know, 3 or 4 times a day, you know, the materials we’re making available free of charge thanks to our donor support. This is who’s receiving them. This is how it’s impacting the development and practice of their faith. So it’s it’s it’s selling the story. And so from, from a fundraising kind of point of view the impact of donors kind of seeing, you know, where they’re where their money’s, you know, what their money’s doing is, is kind of it’s it’s important. And then from a patrons or clients point of view, you know, they want to know what’s what’s new, what’s happening, what’s what’s the organization up to who we share client stories as well. So they get to, you know, read about, you know, people they might actually know. Because the blind community is super small and the blind Catholic community is even smaller. So a lot of them know each other. So yeah, social media is huge for us. We’re on Facebook. Instagram. They’re they’re probably our top two platforms.
Aisling Redican: We use Twitter a lot as well. Not to really the extent that Facebook and Instagram not to the same extent, but and then YouTube we use for like every month we’ll upload some kind of video highlights of new audiobooks that we’ve done. So we’ll upload like a three minute clip so people can hear it. They can get a little taste of what the talking books about. And then if they like it, they can call us or email us to order it. So that’s what we use kind of YouTube for. But Facebook and Instagram are probably our, our biggest platforms in terms of social media. And it’s also great for, for kind of finding new patrons or reconnecting with patrons who’ve lost touch. You know, if they see something shared by someone and. Oh, yeah, Xavier Society, I remember them or. Oh, I’ve never heard about these guys before. They provide free, free Braille and audiobooks. Awesome. I want to reach out to them. So they’re. Yeah. Social media. I’m always amazed, like how 40, 50 years ago, how people kind of found out about us because. Yeah, it’s not like we were, you know, being shouted from the rooftops or anything. Yeah, yeah. So it’s amazing. Yeah. We love social media.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: One of my final questions is this one, do you have any specific projects that you are working on that you would like to tell our listeners about?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. I don’t know if I’m giving anything away here, but.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Any top secrets?
Aisling Redican: Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe I can announce this, but we are working to make the Roman missile available in large print at the minute. Yeah. So as you can imagine, you know, a lot of priests, the the average age is kind of skewing older. And a lot of, you know, older priests are losing their vision and things like that, but they’re not going to learn Braille. They’re not going to. Right, right. You know, they’re not going to be able to use you know, audiobook player at the altar or anything like that. So they’re more comfortable with print, but they just need something big enough to see. So we are in the process of, I guess, getting the rights and making sure everything’s good on that end to make it available in large print and maybe sometime in the future. But I’m not gonna, you know, I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up yet, but that’s kind of the aim. With that, I’m trying to think, what else do we got going on in the pipeline? There’s a lot, you know, we’re just trying to keep up with the technology.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And yeah.
Aisling Redican: It’s everything is just going crazy fast.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Aisling Redican: But we’re trying to, to find a way to kind of automate our processes. So we’re working with a company called Daisy pipeline, and we hope to be able to kind of sometime in the future, use that to kind of automate our Braille and hopefully audio production. But but it’s in the very kind of baby infant stages.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I am certainly impressed with the work that the society has done on the part that it has played in my life personally. I continue to read your books. I continue to engage with with your staff and your team. And I want to thank you for having done this for, you know, free of charge. I mean, like, my goodness, it it must take a lot of donor ships in order to get everything done, would you say?
Aisling Redican: Yeah. And, you know, we’re we’re super blessed to not just serve you, Donna, but all of our our clients free of charge, thanks to thanks to our faithful donor base. And that’s it’s it’s, you know, a mix of individual donors. We have a lot of clients like yourself who support us small family foundations that that donate to us and bequests as well. So yeah, we you know, we’re very blessed to have been able to do what we do for 126 years. But it is not it ain’t cheap that way. And but again we have a very faithful donor base who kind of ensure that, you know, we keep chugging along.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, if someone wanted to contact you, could you give us the phone numbers once more in the website?
Aisling Redican: Absolutely. So again, it’s our website is https://XavierSocietyForTheBlind.org. That’s X A V I E R Society for the Blind.org. Our email is Info@XavierSocietyForTheBlind.org. And then our phone numbers. We have a toll free one which is (800) 637-9193 and a 212 area code which is (212) 473-7800. And yeah, be sure to follow us on, on Facebook and Instagram or whatever platform you use because, you know, that’s where you hear all that’s new. You get to hear some client stories and, you know, other news pertaining to the organization.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Aisling, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been a privilege. And if ever you wanted to come back to talk about anything that you’re doing or any announcement that you’d like to make, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
Aisling Redican: Well, thank you so much again, Donna. This has been a real pleasure. And yeah, we appreciate your help getting the word out.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you very much. And you take care and we will talk to you again very soon.
Aisling Redican: All right, Donna, thank you, thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Bye bye now. Bye bye.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at DonnaJodhan@Gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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Published in Remarkable World Commentary