Tony Cancelosi, President and CEO of Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind (CLB ), one of Washington D.C.’s oldest nonprofits, has rescued it–and the vets it serves–from the brink.
Some six years ago, the century-plus-old CLB was on a downward spiral, an outdated institution in the red and plummeting fast. Cancelosi’s focus on business innovation was key to resuscitating the ailing organization; central to his efforts is the program Bridge to Work, which provides training for wounded warriors.
Cancelosi decided to make veterans a focus of his work just over three years ago when he took a look at the statistics of injured veterans who were being transported back to the United States and recognized that a large percentage were visually impaired or blind.
Through his participation in the Montgomery County Workforce Investment Board, he helped win a grant to establish Bridge to Work, a program that gives veterans who are visually impaired or blind training in digital data scanning, computer skills, and job interviewing.
“We created partnerships with the VA senior level people that do rehab-to-work within the community of veterans,” Cancelosi said. “Working with great organizations like Vietnam Veterans, Veterans of Modern Warfare, and Blind Veterans Foundation, we were able to seek out and gain confidence within the community that this was a program that would work for veterans.”
That was just the beginning. To generate new leads for the 7,000+ visually impaired or blind veterans living in the D.C. area, Cancelosi reached out to the District of Columbia, Fairfax County, Prince Georges County, and Montgomery County to generate combined partnerships to bring the Bridge to Work program to all four counties.