Charity cornhole tournament Saturday at Appalachian Power Park

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D), a not-for-profit organization, will host a cornhole tournament at 3 p.m. Saturday May 10 at Appalachian Power Park. The event, "Toss for a Cause" will benefit the students in West Virginia who learn through listening via this dynamic educational organization. Entry fee is $100 per team of two and the first place team will win $1,000.  Only 32 teams can enter and the spots will fill up fast.  

RFB&D has only had a presence in West Virginia since 2005, so "Toss for a Cause" is the organization's first large scale event in the state and will serve to both raise awareness and funds. In those three short years in the state, RFB&D has grown from serving 300 students to over 3,000. Studies show us that there are an estimated 14,000 more in West Virginia alone who could use our service, though, so increasing awareness and funds is critical for West Virginia students.

For 60 years, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), a national nonprofit organization, is the leading producer of accessible educational materials for students with disabilities such as visual impairment or dyslexia that make reading standard print difficult or impossible. With titles available in every subject area and grade level from kindergarten through graduate studies, RFB&D's digitally recorded textbooks are highly effective learning tools for students challenged by the printed page.

RFB&D is a national organization that was started in the 1940s after the newly formed G.I. bill was put into place. Blinded soldiers returning home from WWII wanted to take advantage of the bill, but most couldn't read Braille. Motivated by this, a group of volunteers from the Women's Auxiliary in New York transformed the attic of the New York Public Library into a studio, and began recording textbooks for the servicemen, using what was then state-of-the-art technology - six-inch vinyl SoundScriber phonograph discs that played only 12 minutes of material per side. Today, RFB&D's digitally recorded textbooks are stored on CDs, which hold more than 40 hours each of recorded materials that are played on special devices which allows the student to navigate easily through a book and follow along with peers in the classroom.