To bring together DeafBlind communities by connecting people to the world.

I, Cassandra Oakes, was born in January 1959 in Birmingham, Alabama. I was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss at birth and later in my late teen with an eye disease as retinitis pigmentosa known also as Usher’s Syndrome (US). Being the only child out of six siblings with dual sensory loss, both hearing and sight, led me to grow up in a “hearing” world as an observer and wonderer to why my siblings were able to have more interactions that I did. This made me become a dreamer and as I dreamed throughout my growing years, I have accomplished many dreams and found out it’s not what other people can do but I can do with my disability. I have believed and focused on myself and what I will do. When I was deaf, I I became a very good lip-reader and when I became blind, I became an even better dreamer. Retiring in 2001 due to legal blindness took a whole new level of changes in my life. I dreamed and made it my life’s goal to keep striving for positiveness through all the negativeness that came my way. Ten years later after retirement, I founded Sight-Hearing Encouragement Program – SHEP after experiencing with a friend who wanted us to become friends because she was very lonely and didn’t have any friends or companionship as a DeafBlind person like ourselves. Unfortunately, our friendship was abruptly cut very short due to her death with fast spreading cancer. It grieved my heart and caused me to dream bigger dream for DeafBlinds everywhere in the state of Oklahoma. My heart poured out to see our DeafBlind community to achieve their life success with independence by changing their disability and life’s negativity. Mine and SHEP’s vision is for each and every deafblind individual to search their heart deep for the purpose of their life with a whole new mind and attitude of positivity in a growing community of uniqueness and greatness, deserved of inclusivity.

Cassandra Oakes
President, Founder