A touching tale
By Colneth Smiley Jr.
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Sight is no match for hands-on experience when it comes to showing people the ropes - and the creatures - at the Franklin Park Zoo. Just ask Mike Pedone and Josh Hallee, the first interns to give zoo visitors the lay of the land using their hands instead of their eyes.
“It was 50-50 on both seeing and feeling,” said Hallee, 17, who spent five weeks at the zoo through the Perkins School for the Blind’s Outreach Summer Employment Program.
“We weren’t allowed to go into all the exhibits and touch the animals, but we did bring along skulls, fossils, fur, feathers and footprints to let the public see and feel what the animals would feel like up close,” said Hallee, a Wilby High senior from Waterbury, Conn.
Hallee, who is visually impaired, and Pedone, who is blind, were the first visually impaired summer interns to be assigned to zoo duty.
“Franklin Park is a big zoo and it was cool to work there,” said Pedone, an incoming senior at Perkins. “It’s a nice environment to be in. You meet a lot of different people and work closely with animals and learn about the habitats. It felt good to know that you are doing something worthwhile educating the public about these animals.”
The zoo was familiar territory for Hallee, an animal lover with 14 dogs who dreams of becoming a veterinarian or zoo keeper.
“Just because you are visually impaired or blind doesn’t mean we can’t do what visual people can,” said Hallee. “It was sometimes overwhelming at first because hundreds of people come in asking questions and you’ve got to know the answers. So I did a lot of research. I grew up with all different kinds of animals - dogs, cats, squirrels - but working at the zoo was harder because the animals there are wild. But that just makes it a little more exciting.”
Given that 71 percent of the blind and visually impaired are described as “underemployed,” the zoo internship is an important opportunity, said Perkins spokeswoman Marilyn Rea Beyer.
“They worked so hard all summer. This was an experience that can prepare them for the work that may await them after graduating from high school,” she said.
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