Republic-Times readers are reading this sentence right now. For most of the newspaper’s readership, it comes easy. But for those with disabilities such as a visual impairment, or a disease that makes it tough to turn the page like Parkinson’s, it’s not so easy.

That’s where Waterloo resident Sharon Glessner comes in. In fact, she will probably read this story out loud at some point this week. Glessner, a retired pre-K teacher from Zahnow Elementary, reads the paper aloud once a week. She records it for the organization MindsEye, which then broadcasts her recording through the radio or online .

“Locally, what I do — I think they have people all over the area — is read the Republic-Times. I read the front page — the hard news,” Glessner said. “Then I go and read some things from the Randolph County Herald Tribune, just off their website. It’s kind of dependent on what they post there. I do maybe a half hour of the Republic-Times then about 10 to 15 minutes for the Herald Tribune. Then I come back and do sports, features, lighter stuff. It’s basically just reading the newspaper.”

The MindsEye office is located at the Shrine of Our Lady  of the Snows in Belleville. It will be celebrating its 43rd year as an organization in March 2016.

“I would say the main purpose or our motto is to keep individuals and the blind, and the print community connected,” MindsEye development director Jason Frazier said. “That’s by reading newspapers, magazines and grocery store ads primarily. If you’re in Waterloo, for example, and there is a mention about the Monroe County Fair, you can’t catch that on CNN listening to your TV or any other TV station. That’s something you need to get from the local newspaper. That’s what we do. We help those individuals who can’t read the printed word.”

Frazier graduated from Gibault in 2003 and has been working for the organization for the past four years. After earning a mass communications degree from SIUE, he found his way to MindsEye.

“I looked at is as when I first started that it was something about life just going in circles,” Frazier said. “Going to Catholic school, I had always come to the grounds of the Shrine, where the station is located. I had never seen it. Also, my grandmother was blind and she had passed away. From the time that I was born, I had never known about the station, either, so it was kind of me finding out about it for the first time. But, I had these links that could have led me to the station prior.”

Glessner found out about the organization’s need for someone to read Monroe County local news through her son-in-law, Kyle Buettner. He’s married to Glessner’s daughter, Abby. They have a grandson named Silas. Glessner and her husband, John, also have a son, Andrew, who is married to Andrea. They have a son, Colton, and are expecting a baby in February. Glessner didn’t want to leave out her family.

One of the more prominent events MindsEye puts together is a beep baseball tournament. Beep baseball is basically baseball for the blind, but athletes use a ball that makes sound. Buettner participated in the tournament ­— the sighted are blindfolded — as part of a team at a radio station he works for in St. Louis. He met people from MindsEye, who told him about what the organization does and their need for someone in Monroe County to read the news.

“They have a center in Belleville, and a lot of people will go and read there,” Glessner said. “They have a studio. So, you can also just download a program and do it from home. It’s called Audacity, so it’s a commercial program. It’s free. You can buy an upgraded version of it. But for their purposes, the free one is fine. I downloaded the program, record (the news) and download it to the computer. Then you Dropbox it.”

Glessner said she needs to fill up 57 minutes and 30 seconds each week.

“That’s kind of hard to get it right, but it takes me maybe an hour and a half to do it,” Glessner said. “You have to click back and forth on your computer and make sure you know where the page turns go to, things like that.”

The recording is available 26 different ways. A special type of radio called an SCA radio can be loaned out to individuals who may need one. There are also many ways to stream the station through the Internet.

For more information, visit www.mindseyeradio.org/listen.