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She Has The Vision To Follow Her Heart

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By SUSAN M. GREEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 15, 2007

Updated: 12/13/2007 04:55 pm

RUSKIN - Born with a rare kind of cataracts that defied treatment, Kenlyn South spent most of her life legally blind.

Her eyesight deteriorated through adulthood until she could no longer drive. By 1998, her employment options were severely limited. However, innovations in surgical techniques offered her a choice.

"They told me I could wake up blind," she recalled. "I took the chance. I was going blind anyway."

Instead, South woke up with eyesight good enough that she could drive without glasses for the first time in her life. Grateful, she started thinking about ways to "give back" to others for the gift she had received. She remembered what it was like to be the child who sat with her nose practically on the classroom blackboard.

"Kids made fun of my thick glasses," she said. At age 7, she had surgery for muscle weakness in one eye. She wore a patch. Her mother threw a party at the school when South returned to class, and suddenly the other kids stopped laughing at her and she didn't feel so different anymore.

"My mother was such a wise woman," South said. "Mom said, 'If you look at this as an inconvenience, you can do whatever you want to your heart's content.'"

Heart's Content is the name of South's charity, and blind children from low-income families are the primary beneficiaries.

For most yuletide seasons since 1999, South, who also works at the Mary and Martha House in Ruskin, has been collecting toys and clothes to distribute to children each Christmas.

Her efforts have been assisted by the Ruskin United Methodist Church. Last year, she skipped the season, depressed by the death of her mentor, Rose Moye of the Division of Blind Services in Tampa who helped make her sight-giving surgery possible financially.

But this year, South and a handful of volunteers are back at it, collecting money and toys so they can provide holiday gifts and meals to low-income families with blind children.

The recipients are identified by teachers of vision-impaired children in Hillsborough County, South said. Most are the children of single working parents, she said.

"It's real hard when you're a single mom and you work and come home tired," she said. Many still take the time to do homework or read with their children, South said.

Heart's Content is collecting toys for children 18 months to 17 years. Teachers have suggested musical instruments, music boxes, compact disc players, tape recorders, story tapes, talking books and toy cars, trucks or dolls. The organization also distributes toys to siblings in the family.

Cash donations will be applied to Wal-Mart gift cards or food gift cards for Christmas dinner. Any leftover money will be placed in the organization's "abundance chest," reserved to help the families with short-term emergencies beyond the holiday season.

Heart's Content is in the process of applying for 501(c)(3) status through the church.

South said she hopes to expand the organization's services to include local children from low-income families, regardless of disabilities.

"We need to make Christmas a reality for lots of kids," South said.

John Bartha, the church pastor, said South's program was a fixture at Ruskin United Methodist when he came to Ruskin in 2005 and he supported continuing it. He said he especially likes South's policy of including sighted siblings in the list of gift recipients because children wouldn't understand why one child in the same family would receive a gift and another wouldn't.

"It's a unique program that meets the needs of visually impaired children and their families," Bartha said.

Toys and donations can be dropped off at the church from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays. Checks should be addressed to Ruskin United Methodist Church with the words "blind children" written in the memo line and mailed to P.O. Box 745, Ruskin FL 33575. For information, call (813) 645-1241.

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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