"The dedication and innovative work that is carried out at the MAB would no doubt make my great-grandfather as proud as I am of its accomplishments," said NDP leader Jack Layton, a descendant of Philip E. Layton, who was visually impaired when he founded the MAB in 1908. More than a dozen members of the Layton family were also on hand for the anniversary celebration.

"The MAB has become a solid community presence over the years and has achieved a significant number of firsts," said Tom Davis, president of the MAB-Mackay Rehabilitation Centre's board of directors.

Among those achievements, the MAB opened the first workshop for the blind in Canada, assisted the first Montrealer to use a guide dog, created the first Canadian residential centre for multi-handicapped blind young adults, and formed the first comprehensive low vision clinic in Canada.

Sandra Cassell, who works as a social worker for senior citizens at the MAB, knows full well how the organization's services are valuable. In 2001, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary eye condition. Prior to that she had full vision, but within three years she became legally blind. A mother of three children, she was also pursuing university studies at the time.

"I had the support of the MAB," she said in an interview. "I completed my degree and graduated like everyone else. Interestingly enough, I was hired at the MAB I think a year-and-a-half later. Prior to that I had been working in social work, but with vision. I've been at the MAB almost three years, and so far so good."

The MAB, which merged with the Mackay Rehabilitation Centre two years ago, provided services to the blind and visually impaired community in Montreal for nearly a century. Since the merger, the MAB-Mackay centre has been providing comprehensive services to more than 2,500 Anglophone and allophone clients across the province.

The MAB was the first organization serving blind English-speaking children in Montreal and was the first Canadian organization serving blind adults. Beginning as a broom-manufacturing workshop, a free lending library, and a social club, the MAB eventually purchased land in then-undeveloped NDG, constructing the first English school for the blind in 1912.