Ninety years ago, before screen readers, before the internet, before the American Council of the Blind itself, Pennsylvanians living with vision loss decided they were stronger together than apart. That decision became the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind. This week, it gets a new home online.
The redesigned pcb1.org is now live, built around the feedback of our members, the accessibility expectations of our community, and the principles that have guided our peer network since 1936.
Ninety Years of Peers Helping Peers
The Pennsylvania Council of the Blind was founded in 1936, making us one of the oldest disability organizations in the United States. Our story predates the American Council of the Blind, with which we have proudly affiliated, by twenty-five years. Across nine decades, the work has not changed nearly as much as the tools have. Members still meet members. Peers still mentor peers. Stories still travel through our chapters, our listservs, the PCB Advocate, the PCB Information Line, and now PCB Spark.
What has changed, again and again, is how we reach each other. We have moved from print to recorded audio to email to listservs to Zoom to a dedicated stream on ACB Media. Through every change, our charge has been the same: meet our peers where they are.
Why a New Website, and Why Now
For several years, our website lived on a hosting platform that no longer served our community well. Pages were difficult to maintain. Updates were slow. A redesign begun in 2022 was never fully completed. When members arrived at pcb1.org expecting accessibility, they too often found friction instead.
That is not the welcome any peer of ours deserves.
In early 2026, our Treasurer, Michael Zaken, brought to the Board a proposal to relocate and redesign the site from the ground up. With Board approval, we began that work in March. The result of that work is the website you are reading today.
The new pcb1.org is hosted on WordPress.com, the platform built and maintained by Automattic. Its accessibility tooling, screen-reader compatibility, and long-term reliability are among the best available, and the same platform powers some of the most respected publishers in the broader blind and low-vision community.
A Partner Who Knows the Community
We did not undertake this work alone. We were fortunate to partner with Aaron Di Blasi, PMP, founder and president of Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd., a Cleveland-area digital marketing firm with long, deep roots in the blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, neurodivergent, and disabled communities.
Aaron’s name will be familiar to many of our members. He is the publisher of Top Tech Tidbits, the world’s leading not-for-profit access technology newsletter, which reaches more than 44,000 readers worldwide each week. He is also publisher of its sister publication, Access Information News, which reaches another 43,000 readers each week with the policy, opinion, and information stories that affect our daily lives. Both publications are operated as not-for-profit projects by Mind Vault Solutions, with editorial direction set not by advertisers but by the readers themselves.
Aaron has been listening to that community of readers, gathering feedback, refining formats, and adjusting accessibility decisions issue by issue, since 2007. Mind Vault Solutions itself has been serving nonprofits, governments, and disability-focused clients with ADA, WCAG, and Section 508 compliance work since 2004. That is more than twenty years of accessibility-first practice, gathered in steady conversation with the very community PCB exists to serve.
He understood what we wanted before we finished asking.
Built on the Voices of Our Members
This was always going to be a member-led redesign. Our PCB Technology Team Leader, Douglas Hunsinger, gathered priorities into a single working document, the things we needed to keep, the things we wanted to add, and a few things it was finally time to retire. Our Communications Team, with thoughtful input from members across our chapters, weighed in on tone, layout, and the look of the new home page. Several members asked thoughtful questions; several more contributed thoughtful answers. By the time the building started, every important decision had already passed through our peers.
One small example tells the larger story. When the question came up of whether the home page should be a running list of new posts or a static welcome page, our Communications Team gathered feedback from members, weighed simplicity against flexibility, and arrived at a clear answer: a welcoming front door, with our newsletter, our advocacy work, and our chapter information all one click away. It was a small decision. We made it the way we make every decision worth making, together.
What You Will Find at the New pcb1.org
The redesigned pcb1.org brings our nine decades of work into one accessible, screen-reader-friendly experience. Visitors will find:
- A clear introduction to PCB and our SPARK framework, Self-confidence, Peer support, Accessibility, Resources, Knowledge, and the way it shapes everything we do
- The PCB Advocate and PCB Spark newsletter archives in the formats our members rely on
- Information about our chapters and special-interest affiliates across Pennsylvania
- Details on AccessiDocs, our peer-run DAISY document conversion service
- TheReImage storytelling campaign and our other signature initiatives
- Our annual conference history, with updates as the next gathering approaches
- The PCB Information Line, listserv signup, and ways to volunteer, give, and join
One Tradeoff We Talked Through Honestly
A redesign of this scope asks something of the people who use the site every day. Bookmarks change. Familiar paths shift. For members and staff who have learned exactly where everything used to live, the first few visits will require a small adjustment. We considered that cost carefully and chose to take it on now, with a partner we trust and on a platform we expect to stand behind us for years, rather than postpone the work yet again. We believe the long-term gain in accessibility, reliability, and ease of updating will more than repay the brief inconvenience. We thank you, in advance, for your patience as we settle in.
What This Means for Our Peer Network
For our roughly three hundred members, this is your house, refreshed. For our chapters, this is a more reliable place to point new peers. For the staff and volunteers who keep the site current week to week, this is a less frustrating tool that better supports your work. And for a peer arriving at pcb1.org for the very first time, perhaps newly experiencing vision loss, perhaps a family member trying to help, this is, at last, the welcome we have always wanted to extend.
Before You Go
Ninety years in, our charge remains exactly what it was in 1936: to promote independence and opportunities for people with vision impairments. The tools change. The peer network endures. The new pcb1.org is one more tool, built carefully, built with member voices at every step, and built with the steady help of a friend who has spent two decades doing this work alongside our community.
Welcome home. Look around. Tell us what you think.
Your feedback built this site. It will keep building it.
About the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind
A peer network of people impacted by vision loss. Igniting Independence and Fueling Future Success.
The Pennsylvania Council of the Blind (PCB) is a 501(c)(3) public charity and a state affiliate of the American Council of the Blind. Founded in 1936, we are one of the oldest disability organizations in the United States. Our mission is to promote independence and opportunities for people with vision impairments, guided by our SPARK framework: Self-confidence, Peer support, Accessibility, Resources, and Knowledge.
Our flagship quarterly publication, The PCB Advocate, is a two-time winner of the American Council of the Blind’s Hollis K. Liggett Braille Free Press Award and is available in large print, Braille, NLS audio cartridge, email, and electronic formats.
Connect With PCB:
- Website: https://pcb1.org
- Email: pcboffice@pcb1.org 📧️
- Toll-Free: +1 (877) 617-7407 📱️
- Office: +1 (717) 920-9999 📱️
- PCB Information Line: +1 (773) 572-6314 📱️
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/PACounciloftheBlind
- X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/pcb_advocate
- Mailing Address: PO Box 68, Volant, PA 16156-0068