About Us

Hands Down Monkey was inspired by our son, Gavin. Gavin is blind, and has Leber's Congenital Amaurosis. He is the first instance in our family with vision loss and he has sparked our passion to bring attention to Braille Literacy. According to The Braille Institute, there are 15 million blind and visually impaired people in the United States. There are also over 55,000 children in school today who are legally blind, and out of all those children, only 12% can read braille. Even though Gavin is still a baby, we try to expose him, as well as his 5 yr old brother and other family members to braille. With statitistics so astounding, and 90% of blind jobholders in the United States being braille literate, we knew this would be our mission. Promote braille literacy to everyone, get people comfortable and exposed to it. It's just another way to read!

We are big supporters of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, and are excited to enter our second year of preparing for the annual VisionWalk. Gavin's Groupies raised almost $9,000 last year, and we are looking to surpass that number in 2010. We are donating 20% of every purchase towards the Foundation Fighting Blindness. The Foundation funds leading-edge research and we know one day, there will be treatment for Gavin, and many others like him, who suffer from vision loss.

Thank you for helping us with our fight, and for your support. The phrase "hands down, monkey!" is repeated in our household hundreds of times a day and was the inspiration behind the name. "Monkey" as we lovingly refer to Gavin as, does a lot of eye-pressing. Those who are not familiar, eye-pressing is a common behavior with those who have vision loss. There are many ideas and theories behind the need for eye-pressing, but our concern is keeping Gavin's hands down and out of his eyes. "Hands down, monkey!" is his cue to get his fists, fingers and palms out of his eyes.

We thank you for your support, and joining us in our fight!

The Stevens Family

You can read all about Gavin's journey and our fight to raise awareness on his blog: www.gavinrobert.blogspot.com