Restaurant adds braille menu

Stellarton Jungle Jim’s introduces braille and QR code menus

Luke Reddick has just entered his teenage years, but he is already advocating for his independence and braille literacy.

“More braille menus and just more braille signs and stuff like that,” said the 13-year-old, on what he would change about Pictou County to make it more accessible for those with visual impairments.

Reddick was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, a condition in which the optic nerve is underdeveloped. The optic nerve transmits visual signals from the eye to the brain.

‘I can’t see super small or super far away things and I can read size 72 print. My left eye is worse than my right eye,” says Reddick.

He says with his left eye it is like looking through a tube. When it comes to things in the distance, the bigger they are the easier they are to see.

This presents a problem when it comes to restaurant menus.

Going to restaurants for many people is often a special occasion, a time to relax and enjoy good food. People with visual impairments just want to be able to have the same experience, while not sacrificing their independence.

Jody Holley, Reddick’s mother, often ran into this while working at Jungle Jim’s in Stellarton.

She says going up to the tables of patrons with visual impairments, she would always just feel like something was missing.

Realizing that thing was independence, it gave her the idea for menus written in braille, with accompanying QR codes.

With the QR codes people who are visually impaired, but don’t know how to read braille, can scan the code and it will bring them to a Youtube video that reads out the items. They can also be useful for people who have trouble focusing, those who have learning disabilities or those who find it hard to reach in noisier places.

She reached out to Reddick’s itinerant teacher, Nicole MacDonald, on who she should contact to get them made.

With not many local options available, MacDonald, who teaches around 12 visibly impaired students in the county, took on the project herself.

“She is a big part of our life,” said Holley, going on to say they appreciate her and are lucky to have her.

Holley says when it comes to making changes, ones that better the lives of those with visual impairments, it’s “one step at a time.”

According to the 2020 summary report of the Cost of Vision Loss and Blindness in Canada, conducted by The Canadian Council of the Blind, 34,000 people in Nova Scotia are living with vision loss. That is how many people in the province could benefit from menus like the ones at Jungle Jims.

Julie Martin is a regular at the restaurant. Coming in with her husband after the menu change, she says Holley was just vibrating with excitement when she walked in, telling her she had been waiting for her.

Sitting down, Holley gave her the menu.

“For someone who is living with a sight loss, like me, to be able to go into a restaurant and read your own menu and not have to rely on somebody else to do it for you or just choose the same things every time because you know it’s there, it’s liberating,” says Martin.

Other restaurants in the county have menus for those with vision loss, but in Martin’s experience, they are not as easily accessible in availability and readability.

“I’ve been in twice since and I just sit and listen to the menu. I just love it, it is amazing.”

She says when it comes to things like menus, having braille and QR codes is ideal. Martin has Retinitis Pigmentosa, which she was diagnosed with in her 20s, but the most prevalent eye diseases associated with vision loss are also associated with ageing.

Pictou County has a large number of seniors, and Martin says at 60 years old people are most likely not going to learn braille. That is why having both braille and QR codes is great.

While the menus will benefit those with vision loss, Martin thinks they can have an even larger impact.

“It is beneficial to everybody and I think it is great, especially because it is a family restaurant.

“I think it is a great tool for teaching kids that there are lots and lots of different abilities, it’s not just ambulatory and people in wheelchairs.”

She says communities thrive when old men plant trees for the shade they will never see.

“For me after years of advocating for people with visual impairment in Pictou County, to see everything coming to fruition like this is just wonderful,” she says.