VIRGINIA GRAY: Founder of the organization she started in Atlanta and is set to revitalize in West Palm Beach. PHOTO COURTESY OF VIRGINIA GRAY

West Palm Beach – The Just Us Blind Girls organization started by Virginia Gray, 77, a blind African American trailblazer from Atlanta, is set to revitalize the institution in West Palm Beach this winter.

Gray said the organization years ago was in Palm Beach County but took a hiatus and is making a comeback.

Now is the time, she said, to return under the umbrella of the Braille Club of the Palm Beaches, and bring blind women everywhere what they need and deserve.

“We are excited to revitalize our organization in South Florida and worldwide via the Internet,” said Gray who started it in Atlanta on her birthday, April 7, in 1994.

She said she wants all blind girls and women to be received with dignity and respect, and her mission is to network, educate, inform and advocate for them.

She also wants to encourage social opportunities they may not otherwise have had, including family days, motorcycling. bike riding and more. "We can do amazing things like anyone else and in some cases better,” she said.

Gray has had several transition homes – called Uncle Billy’s House, and Auntie Virginia’s House, her namesake – that house and help former inmates.

She also made history by becoming the only company in the United States to have blind inmates released to her care. She received a gold medal from the Georgia commissioner of prisons, and said she’s also been honored for her cooking.

Gray said she began having vision problems at age 16 and is scheduled for another surgery soon, but with faith there’s light at the end of the tunnel, literally and figuratively.