Sean Govenor

Sean Govenor is visually impaired. But that doesn’t keep him from volunteering at Lehigh Community Services in Lehigh Acres.

The 20-year-old Lehigh man has been declared legally blind because of brain cancer which occurred 10 years ago. For all these years, Sean is proud to say that he is a cancer survivor.

“He is really a good worker, said Charlotte Rae Nicely, the executive director of Lehigh Community Services.

“He came here and helped a year or so ago and we are very appreciative for his help. He doesn’t stand around; he works very hard.“

Govenor is a senior this coming August in Fort Myers High School and the work he is doing for the Lehigh Agency is considered community service.

Sean Govenor is shown working at Lehigh Community Services where he volunteers to help staffing shelves in the agency’s food pantry. Photos by Mel Toadvine

But Margie Ribeiro, a transition service program coordinator with Visually Impaired Persons of Southwest Florida, based in North fort Myers, says the volunteer job that he is doing is also part of helping him through her organization which works with visually impaired people to help them to become independent.

“We are a state-funded organization, Ribeiro said. “We help those who have sign loss between the ages of 14 and 22. We are like a ‘job coach’ inasmuch as we teach them all kinds of skills, work ethics, shopping, how to cook and learn assistive technology, mobility and provide low vision services.

“We want to teach them to become as independent as soon as possible, Ribeiro said.

Sean lives with his parents but one day soon, he says he wants to become independent and find a place of his own.

He is the son of Debra Easter and his stepfather is Bill Wolf. His father is Marcel Govenor.

Margie Ribeiro, left, spends time with Sean governor, who is visually impaired. She has helped him to shop, and learn several basic skills, all in an effort to make him self-reliant. She is a transition service program coordinator with Visually Impaired Persons of Southwest Florida, which is located at 35 West Mariana Ave. in North Fort Myers. Photo by Mel Toadvine

This past week, Sean was spending a few hours working in the pantry at the rear of the Lehigh Community Services on Plaza Drive.

People who need food come into the food pantry and are able to select the things they want from shelves, like in a market.

Sean was very careful to put the right things in the right place and to stack the groceries so they could be found easily by those who are eligible to come and get food.

“I can see enough to know they are where they should be,” Govenor laughed.

“But I can’t see well enough to do a lot of things, but I am doing what I can do. I want to be able to do for myself if I can,” he said.

More information can be obtained about the Visually Impaired Persons group at: www.vipcenter.org.