Jini Fairley has raised five children, been celebrated as a Boston Celtics "Hero Among Us" and placed top five in a 5K race, all without her sight.
But the Carroll Center for the Blind admitted the Newton resident into the Carroll Society at its 27th annual awards ceremony for her "outstanding achievement in the work force."
The June 26 ceremony, sponsored by the Carroll Center and the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, honored Fairley, along with five other inductees, as an "example of the unlimited potential of the employee who is blind."
"It means recognition by my peers, two organizations and my employer that I'm doing an outstanding job," Fairley said. "It's very rewarding for me to be recognized for the work I do and how I do it. It's a very big honor for me that they selected me from the candidates,"
After settling down in Newton following a three-year stay in France with her husband and young children, tragedy struck Fairley twice. In the same year retinitis pigmentosa left her legally blind and Fairley's husband passed away. Without her sight and her husband, Fairley had five children to raise. Entering the job market became a necessity and seemingly insurmountable challenge.
Fairley credits her re-emergence onto the employment scene to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, which sponsored her in the Carroll Center's Independent Living and Office Skills programs, which she attended in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
Both courses, Fairley said, "restored some of the independence I felt slipping away from me. It was life-changing as far as getting the confidence to go out by myself and the tools to keep moving along the path I wanted, which was to get a job."
Fairley landed employment at the Disability Policy Consortium. As project director and disability rights advocate, Fairley established a chapter for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, served as treasurer for the Newton Public Schools Understanding Differences programs, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary this November, and won full accessibility to the Massachusetts State House.
In 2005, the Framingham-based MetroWest Center for Independent Living noticed Fairley's excellent work at the consortium and hired her as director of services, the job for which she was honored. Today, Fairley manages a staff of three, provides independent living services for 250 disabled persons in more than 26 towns, and advocates for rights of disabled persons throughout the commonwealth.
"(Fairley) is an outstanding employee who happens to be blind. She is outstanding by any standards," said MetroWest Center Assistant Director Rose Quinn, who accompanied Fairley during the award presentation.
The volunteer section of her resume is equally impressive. Fairley is an active member of the Newton Mayor's Committee for Persons with Disabilities, in which she satisfies her "civic duty" by fostering the public's "awareness and sensitivity to disabilities." In addition to raising money for the Carroll Center by running the Vision 5K, Fairley is co-founder and a member of the center's Alumni Committee.
"The Carroll Center remains dear to my heart. It means a lot to me and will always mean a lot of me. Everyone comes out of there so much more independent and confident and able to live in a sighted world with little or no vision," Fairley said.
