Photo: Dan Cantanno/WBZ NewsRadio
NEWTON, Mass.(WBZ NewsRadio) — A Newton-based nonprofit is making it easier for the blind to build with Lego bricks.
Bricks for the Blind was founded in the spring of 2024. They are best known for converting Lego's visual instructions found in their sets into text-based building instructions that those who are visually impaired can use with the help of someone reading to them or their reading tech. These instructions are offered for free on their website.
Nonprofit founder Matthew Shifrin, who has been blind since birth, was inspired to start Bricks for the Blind because of a family member who wrote out Lego instructions for him when he was 13.
“I had this wonderful family friend, Lilya Finkel, and she created the first ever set of accessible Lego building instructions," Shifrin said. “Here I was able to do this thing that my friends had been doing for years, and they had been doing it so intuitively, and here I was finally able to do it.”
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Since then, he has strived to pass on that support his family friend gave him to other blind individuals.
The organization has made 495 sets accessible so far, with 20 being added just this year.
More information on the nonprofit can be found here.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.