Lions Club Donates Special Furnace to Support Visually Impaired Students

In technical terms, it is called a “little furnace” (“fornetto”) and is a special piece of equipment that allows a visually impaired person to learn the handwritten cursive alphabet, study geometry, and read a map.

The device, which transforms lines traced on a special sheet into relief through heat, was donated by the Lions Club to a young blind individual from Arco, Andrea Bombardelli, who is in his first year at the Technical Industrial Institute.

The “little furnace” was handed over to the student from Arco during an evening that saw him as a guest, along with his family, at the “Arco – Riva del Garda” Lions Club. During this event, Gennaro Romaldini, the president, had the opportunity to explain the initiatives promoted by the Lions at national and international levels to support the visually impaired.

Lions Initiatives and Activities

“In particular,” – recalled President Romaldini – “the ‘Guide Dogs’ service has been active since 1962 and has facilitated over 1,200 donations in the past forty years. In Limbiate, near Milan, a state-of-the-art center has been established for training and infrastructure, where dogs are trained and then provided free of charge to the visually impaired.”

At the Lions’ evening, held at the association’s headquarters at Hotel Liberty, attendees were also shown a documentary illustrating the activities of the Milanese center, which currently has about eighty kennels and a well-equipped veterinary clinic.

Delivery and Future Perspectives

The evening concluded with the presentation of the equipment to the student from Arco, who three years earlier had been gifted a “Braille” printing machine.

After thanking the Lions for their constant support and generosity, Andrea explained to those present that, thanks to the new machine, he will now be able to achieve a particularly important goal for those born blind: making the concept of space perceivable.