Belleville nonprofit MindsEye, which records services for the area’s blind and visually impaired people, is looking for donations and volunteer help after recent storms damaged its offices and a nearby radio tower.
MindsEye President and CEO Jason Frazier said he’s hoping for better weather, because a few hundred feet of the tower is still precariously dangling.
“We have a huge lighting rod just sitting on top of the building,” Frazier said. “So, that is a little frightening to think about — like hopefully there’s not any worse damages because the structure is still in shambles and pieces around the property.”
Alongside the radio tower at the facility near the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, the building has five recording studios. MindsEye is shutting down the office until the tower can be cleaned up.
That means the organization is currently short on volunteers, whom it relies on to record print and text into audio for those who can’t see. Frazier hopes MindsEye can find additional volunteers to work from home in the meantime. Community donations would also help, he said.
When exactly the downed tower can be cleaned up has not yet been determined. Frazier said he hopes it can be sometime in the coming week or next. How much the removal and repairs will cost is also something MindsEye is still assessing.
Despite the situation, it could have been worse, Frazier said.
The nonprofit broadcasts its separate radio programming on a secondary 101.1 frequency, but that tower stands in south St. Louis County and was not damaged in the storms. MindsEye also recently expanded its service area to central Illinois, and that service is also still operating.
Frazier said he feels thankful the Belleville tower, which hasn’t been used to air MindsEye’s programming since the 1980s, fell the way it did. By his best estimation, a nearby tree on the other side of the building broke the tower’s fall, sparing the organization more damages and costs.
“The tower and building are going to make some things difficult,” he said. “But it doesn’t make things impossible, so we’ll find a way to keep it going.”
