Blind teenager launches project to change the way restaurants serve visually impaired patrons

When his favorite restaurants didn't have menus written in Braille, Mason Fessenden decided to make them on his own.

Fessenden, 18, lives in Monrovia, California. The Temple City High School senior is blind, and he told ABC 7 Los Angeles that Braille menus give people who are visually impaired more independence. "Before the menus, I felt sort of like I wasn't included," he said. "I was excluded from what was on the menu. I heard my parents' voices."

Fessenden was inspired to create the menus as part of a school project, but he isn't going to stop once he graduates in June; in fact, he has launched a business called Clarity Menus and More, and plans on making menus while attending college. His mother, Martha Fessenden, said her son was born three months premature, and she was told he'd "never talk, walk, or read Braille. Now he's 18 years old and he's doing all the above and so much more."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up