NewView is the largest employer of blind and visually impaired Oklahomans. The nonprofit has been around for more than 75 years, but as StateImpact Oklahoma's Sierra Pfeifer reports, turbulence at the federal level is hurting its bottom line.

SP: When David Anderson got a pamphlet in the mail asking for a donation to NewView, he thought he was being taken advantage of.

DA: I thought it was a scam.

His son read him the number on the back of the card, and Anderson called NewView up. The woman who answered the phone was nice, but he still wasn't convinced. He had his son drive him to the Oklahoma City warehouse.

DA: I was going to bust this thing.

He marched through the front door… ready to investigate ... Then he heard footsteps on the stairs.

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DA: And I recognize it because that's how I go down stairs and I recognize the sound.

Anderson lost his vision in a nail gun accident when he was 18, and he had never met another blind person. That’s why he thought NewView – a place designed to employ people with low vision – was too good to be true.

DA: What was on my mind was there's so many things here I can do. And it wasn't just, you know, for me to get a job, but I felt like there was a place for me to actually fix something, do something and be able to help something.

Anderson applied for a job on the spot and has been working at NewView for 20 years.

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Here, he and other warehouse employees manufacture a wide variety of essential goods. They build aircraft wheel chocks, industrial shower curtains and disaster relief kits that get shipped across the U-S.

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Most of the nonprofit’s revenue comes from contracts with the federal government. But NewView’s vice president of business development, Avery Oden, says those contracts are changing.

AO: The federal marketplace is highly unstable. What we used to be able to rely on, we could no longer rely on. And it's a scary reality.

A once reliable US Forest Service contract to build fire hoses is a prime example. As the agency's sole provider for two decades, NewView filled 8-10 pallets of 95 hoses per day.

AO: Today, we're lucky to get ten pallets in a month.

It’s left Oden confused.

AO: I don't know why. And I've been trying to figure out for over a year now … when it's going to change and what’s going to happen.

As a result of slowing fire hose orders, the nonprofit has had to temporarily let go of eight employees.

AO: Furloughs and layoffs are the last thing that we want to do … But we can only absorb it for so long, we can only sustain it for so long. And this is the most challenging period, probably in NewView's 75-year history.

In the past, money from making and testing fire hoses accounted for roughly three-fourths of the manufacturing division's budget.

Oden says his primary concern is NewView… but he’s also worried about firefighting efforts. Last year, Forest Service orders dropped by about 2-thirds, but wildfires aren’t slowing down.

AO: In 2024, there were 9 million acres burned across the country … That's one of the highest fire seasons we've seen in the last decade.

A spokesperson for the Forest Service wrote in an email that shifts QUOTE “aren’t uncommon and aren’t tied to changes in administration.” The agency did not answer follow-up questions.

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Back at NewView, floor employee Jessie G. Lester says building and testing fire hoses gives him purpose.

JL: You look at what you're doing and you think about a fire. How many people does it affect when there's a big fire and you know, you're saving lives, property and you know. Yeah, that's that's where I get my satisfaction knowing I'm helping other people.

It’s something his coworker, Anderson, notices every day.

DA: I got new guys coming here, some of these young guys come in that's never had a job ever. Never worked anywhere, never done anything. And they're just loving having a job, being able to go to work and be able to pay taxes and stuff, you know, to be a regular Joe.

Other federal contracts aren’t safe, either. And Anderson says his – and his coworkers’ – livelihoods are at risk.

In Oklahoma City, I’m Sierra Pfeifer.