Eileen and Chris Brown:Opening the Community’s Eyes

For Chris Brown and his mother, Eileen, of Staten Island, New York, dogs are much more than beloved family pets. They say that the two working Labrador retrievers who entered their lives via Guiding Eyes for the Blind have more than fulfilled the organization’s motto of a “new leash on life.”

Ms. Brown, 57, suddenly began losing her sight at the age of 25. “It was extremely frustrating and difficult to accept the diagnosis of eventual blindness when you are young and seemingly perfectly healthy,” recounts Ms. Brown. However, a degenerative retinal disease called retinitis pigmentosa soon caused her to lose her ability to read print while also affecting her color vision.

Attempting to live a normal life meant not only being inventive but also asking others for help to do everyday things that others take for granted. “She learned to use my eyes for help when I was still quite young,” says Mr. Brown, 28, an adult immunization coordinator in the vaccine sales division at Merck & Co., Inc. “She had to ask for my assistance with things like reading prices in the supermarket or what color shirt matched with a pair of pants. As time passed, her eyesight worsened and we were both frustrated and angry that she was losing her independence and self-esteem.” She wanted a normal life and sought out to find it.

Ms. Brown’s life changed forever when she trained and received a black Labrador named Jitney from Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Guiding Eyes is a non-profit organization that provides trained guide dogs for visually impaired individuals across the United States and Canada. Using Jitney’s eyes and intelligence, combined with his love and companionship, Ms. Brown was able to master daily routines and chores and even enroll in college just before she turned 50.

Guiding Eyes for the Blind gives guide dogs to the visually impaired at no cost—even though the price tag for training one dog is $40,000. To give back to an organization that had given them so much, Mr. Brown told Merck his mother’s story in the hopes that The Merck Company Foundation would match his donation through the Company’s Partnership for Giving matching funds program.

Not only did the Foundation match Mr. Brown’s personal donations, but when Chris shared his mother’s story with other Merck employees, they made contributions of their own to Guiding Eyes for the Blind, which The Merck Company Foundation also matched. Merck also chose Guiding Eyes as one of 15 organizations to receive a $1,000 grant from the Foundation as part of the Partnership for Giving's "Touched By an Agency" program to thank organizations that make a difference in employees’ lives. In total, the Foundation has matched $33,828, including the "Touched By an Agency" grant.

When employees in Merck’s Ophthalmic Division heard the Browns’ story, they made their own commitment to raise $5,000 so they could name a guide dog.

Today, Ms. Brown lives alone with Quigley, a yellow Labrador she received from Guiding Eyes for the Blind when Jitney passed away in 2005.

“I felt lost after Jitney died, but Guiding Eyes for the Blind came through again,” Ms. Brown says. “Jitney was my first angel and now Quigley is my second. People don’t understand that they are so much more than dogs. They not only give me a new view of life through their eyes, but also give me independence, confidence, self-esteem and a future."