Inclusion of Legally Blind Women in the Randolph-Sheppard Program: Issues and Practices

Abstract

A national survey of directors of the Business Enterprise Program Vending Facility Program indicated that women who are legally blind are significantly underrepresented, making up about 24% of the licensed facility managers. This article reports on the survey and suggests ways to eliminate barriers to the recruitment of women into the program. The Randolph-Sheppard Act of 1936 (20 U.S.c., Section 107, et seq.) established the Randolph-Sheppard Vending Facility Program, known in most states as the Business Enterprise Program (BEP). The BEP provides persons who are legally blind (defined as a person who has not more than 20/200 central acuity in the better eye with correcting lenses or a limitation in the field of vision such that the widest diameter in the better eye subtends at an angle of no more than 20 0) with remunerative employment through their operation of vending facilities on federal property. Amendments to the act in 1954 and 1974 strengthened the program, widened the scope of the types of facilities included (vending machines, cafeterias, snack bars, fast-food facilities, and gift-card shops), and extended economic opportunities to legally blind facility managers (also known as operators or vendors) (Moore & Tucker, 1994). This legislation created greater self-employment opportunities for women who are legally blind.Although the literature is replete with data on the difficulties that women generally encounter in becoming self-employed

The Need for Reciprocity between States in Creating Employment Opportunities in the Randolph-Sheppard Program

“…The decline in both the number of legally blind facility managers and the overall number of vending facilities has been well documented (Moore & Cavenaugh, 2003;Schaefer, 2003;Schaefer & Moore 2002). In a national survey of BEP directors (Tucker & Moore, 1997), the 39 states that responded reported that almost half (44%) have more facilities available than licensed m anagers to fill them. In that survey, almost 25% of the BEP directors reported that they had a backlog of qualified referrals to the BEP.…”