Our mission
The Lannie D. Chesapeake Lighthouse inspires and empowers the visually impaired to achieve their fullest potential and share their stories with the world.
To achieve this mission, the Lannie D. Chesapeake Lighthouse has identified six goals:
- Engage a global community dedicated to achieving job parity for the visually impaired across all industries
- Create an incubator hub for entrepreneurs with sight loss looking to launch a new business, provide one-on-one mentor-ship in sales, marketing, business development, branding, and ensure long-term success
- Help the newly diagnosed adjust to blindness or low vision
- Offer job-readiness training during the interim from diagnosis to acceptance into government vocational services
- Overcome negative attitudes toward hiring the visually impaired by showing employers how the visually impaired function successfully in the workplace
- Connect visually impaired, job-ready applicants with hiring organizations
The Lannie D. Chesapeake Lighthouse is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization named for Lannie D., a low-vision ambassador who became legally blind from retinopathy. By sharing his journey and exploration of low-vision aids in the vlog series Coffee Talk with Lannie D., he challenged society’s preconceived notions about sight loss while living life fully as a visually impaired person. Although Lannie D. passed from cancer in 2020, his candor, humor, and passion for human interaction continue to inspire our work to achieve job parity for the visually impaired.