Oak Mountain family helping change Easter for sightless children

Thanks to a family from the 280 area, Alabama children suffering from visual impairment can join the fun each year in search of a new kind of Easter egg — one that beeps.

Each year, Alabama law enforcement agencies host an event to construct electronic beeping Easter eggs for use with blind and visually impaired children. The event is held at the ATF National Center for Explosives Training and Research (NCTER) in Huntsville. It’s organized by the Alabama Chapter of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators (IABTI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Known as “The Rachel Project,” it was named for Rachel Hyche, a student at Oak Mountain Intermediate School. Rachel’s father, ATF special agent David Hyche, initiated the project, where state, federal and local police explosive experts along with military bomb technicians join together to construct the special eggs.

In March, Rachel and her teacher, Stephanie Hardwick-Goldblatt, a Shelby County teacher for visually impaired children, traveled to Huntsville to help.

Hardwick-Goldblatt and Rachel worked on mobility skills with cane travel in the large NCETR complex during the visit, and Rachel gave a speech and demonstration to the group on assistive devices for blind students that she uses at Oak Mountain Intermediate School. During the event, Rachel Brailled the Pledge of Allegiance for the audience.

“The rate of gainful employment for blind people is extremely low, but with Rachel’s determination and great teachers and administrators, the sky is the limit for her,” David Hyche said.

Rachel travels throughout Oak Mountain Intermediate independently with her cane, and the school has equipment to make Braille and tactile material so Rachel can have the same lessons and materials used for other students.

“I travel quite a bit as the Region IV representative for the National Association for Parents of Visually Impaired Children, and I get to be around blind children from all parts of the country,” David Hyche said. “Our school system has done a wonderful job with Rachel, and this is not the story I normally hear from parents in other areas.” 

Beeping Easter egg hunts will be held in four locations in Alabama this year in support of the Alabama Association for the Deaf and Blind and the Alabama Association for Parents of the Visually Impaired (AAPVI).

– Submitted by Dana Thrasher