AVRE is a private, non-profit organization with the mission to create opportunities for success and independence with people who are blind or visually impaired. Our downtown Binghamton facility houses our administrative and clinical staff, our low vision clinic, Vision Rehabilitation and Orientation and Mobility training areas, as well as the majority of our Business Division.
AVRE has served the Southern Tier of New York for over 95 years. Unique for a non-profit, we follow a hybrid business model. On one hand, AVRE clinical staff provide a range of vision rehabilitation services at no cost to people of all ages across our nine county service territory – Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego, Schuyler, Tioga, and Tompkins. On the other, we run a business. Over 90% of the employees who work in our Business Division are blind or visually impaired. Our Business Division includes the manufacture of a variety of paper-based office products, customized contract packaging, and downstate New York Veterans Affairs Medical Center switchboard operations. We reinvest the revenue we generate from our Business Division into our Vision Rehabilitation department thereby offsetting the cost of providing services and programs AVRE employs people who are blind throughout the organization,
including its President/CEO, Ken Fernald.
