VACAVILLE — Deep within the California Medical Facility, behind the razor-wire fence, beyond the clang of several sets of locked bars and down the long central corridor that seems to go on forever, is a small, nondescript door.

A locked door, of course.

It houses an internationally known prisoner program and nonprofit organization called Volunteers of Vacaville, The Blind Project at CMF. Established in 1960, it’s the oldest blind program in the state, said Patrick Sahota, a correctional officer and director of the program.

Behind that locked door — in what looks like a cramped, older-style home with small rooms — more than a dozen inmates work hard, plying their learned trade in those various rooms. They make audio recordings, fix Braille machines, clean tape machines, repair eyeglasses and do Braille transcription for the blind community. The rooms are compact enough that every room has a purpose, every space is utilized. Sahota said there isn’t an area that doesn’t serve multiple purposes.

In a typical shop-style room with work benches and appropriate repair tools, Michael Wallace, the lead brailler repair technician, was using a brush to clean the small pieces of a Braille machine that he took apart. All 511 pieces — ranging from small to hopelessly small — were lined up in order.

“I really love taking a machine, fixing (it) up and giving (it) back to the kids at school,” he said.

While Wallace and others restore and repair about 400 Braille machines a year, other inmates transcribe books into Braille and a third group does professional-quality aural (oral) recordings of books. This third group is also in the process of converting 2,000 titles, made previously in the program, from old-style cassettes to CDs. The recordings they do are an eclectic mix of literature, cookbooks and children’s titles, to mainstream fiction, to specialty titles such as “Armenian Golgatha.” The technology used is complex and the output professional with all the extra noises, glitches, clicks and bumps removed with layers of quality control.

Up front, Efrain Reyes, as the records clerk, seeks donations and puts together marketing letters, which is how the organization stays afloat since the amount it asks for services is little to nothing. Lions Club International is a large donor to the program. Darren Sewell, the program coordinator who has been an inmate in the program for seven years, tracks all the finances.

“And I have extra gray hair to prove it,” he said, laughing.

Sewell pointed to a photo on the wall near his desk of two blind children from the Oakland School District using Braille machines. The inmates fixed 14 Braille machines for the district when it was in bankruptcy and couldn’t afford the cost.

“Sometimes you actually see who you’re helping,” Sewell said, looking at the photo with a smile. He said it makes him feel good to get see the photos and receive the letters from those they’ve helped.

“These guys understand (that what they do) here resonates outside these walls,” Sahota said.

They help blind communities in 39 states and multiple countries. Many recipients of the services are children and schools that normally can’t afford the prices for the services. Prices are “affordable” and can change to meet the needs of the customers, even free if the situation warrants, Sahota said.

They also clean and maintain for free more than 1,000 tape machines a year owned by the state-run California Braille and Talking Book Library, which saves the state thousands each year, Sahota said. And they have a free audio book lending library and loan out Braille machines at no charge.

“Most of us are lifers,” Reyes said. “We’ve done a lot of harm out there so this is a way to give back.”

Their crimes range from first-degree murder to three-strikes convictions for drugs. While a lot of the inmates are lifers, some are long-timers who will get out someday. The recidivism rate with those who work in the blind program is less than 1 percent compared to 60 percent for the rest of California’s prison population, Sahota said.

While CMF is characterized as a medical and psychiatric facility for prisoners, about two-thirds fall into that category while the remaining one-third are mainline inmates, said Landon Bravo, the facilities community resource manager.

Josh Kaplan, an inmate in the blind program, is self-taught on the Web — all learned from reading a copious number of books in his prison cell. He jokes that his “evenings don’t have a lot of competition.”

“When I came to prison, the Internet did not exist,” he said.

He designed the Volunteers of Vacaville website and from his experience in the program he already has solid job offers as a Web designer after he leaves CMF in six months. He said the thought of release is daunting but with the skills he’s learned, the prospect of release is not as intimidating.

“This is truly a vocational program,” Kaplan said. “It’s amazing. Being here in prison for doing something I’m not proud of, to doing something I am proud of.”

Getting into the program isn’t easy, with its litany of tests. The inmates — the program takes 20 workers but Sahota has a few openings now — must be violence-free their entire stay. Once in the program, they are booted out for even one infraction. They cannot be incarcerated for sex crimes or crimes against a woman or child. They also must have a GED or high school diploma.

Because of the extensive training, they must have at least three years left on their sentence. Just learning how to clean the tape machines can take up to five months to become proficient, Sahota said. To learn Braille and become a certified braillist can take up to two years.

It’s sought-after because comparatively, the pay for the prisoners is good — 95 cents an hour.

Once in the program, the realization of what they’re doing hits.

“You know that you’re (doing) something positive and (you’re able) to maintain that little bit of humanity that is so easily lost in a correctional setting,” said Robert Breshears, the lead Braille transcriber.

For more information on the program, go to http://www.volunteersofvacaville.org.

Reach Susan Winlow at 427-6955 or [email protected]