Both started their volunteer work collecting for the foundation.
Later both had family members who relied on the Blind Foundation services.
Shirley's daughter lost her sight through diabetes while Ralph's wife suffered from macular degeneration.
Ralph, 83, now works to help people wanting to use the Talking Books service.
He is treasurer of the Visually Impaired Empowered Women group and helps the Association of Blind Citizens.
Shirley, 85, drives visually impaired people to weekly bowls meetings, as well as regular luncheons and social outings.
"Many of our visually impaired people are independent and adaptive to their needs, but we are always there to offer some a little bit of help with day-to-day tasks," she says.
The pair provide an invaluable service, much of it on-call to a wide age range.
"I started volunteering to help with the local branch's bookwork," says Shirley.
"My daughter put up her hand and said, "Mum will do it", and Mum has been doing it ever since."
One of Shirley's pleasures is to help organise the monthly 'drop in' luncheons, which includes a guest speaker, as well as the weekly blind bowls, both at Parksyde Community Centre.
"I really enjoy collecting people and taking them to the bowls - they get so much enjoyment out of playing," she says.
For many years she has been helping fundraise to send a Rotorua team to the national bowls tournaments.
Both Ralph and Shirley also help keep about 180 visually impaired people in Rotorua in contact through the phone tree, which has contact lists for everyone.
Both of them say their voluntary work is not a burden.
"If I wasn't doing this I would probably be sitting by the fire - and I'm not ready for that yet," says Ralph, who is also a longtime Ngongotaha Lions Club member.
"You often wonder what people, who are not involved with volunteer groups, do during the day.
"There are many who won't help others, but it's hard to find people with the right attitude.
"Once you are a volunteer you are in it forever."
Blind Foundation National Volunteer Services manager Alison Marshall says volunteers are absolutely vital in helping the organisation deliver as many services as it does to clients.
Last year Blind Foundation volunteers nationwide gave 269,000 hours, helping drive clients to appointments, recreation and sporting activities, offering support and friendly contact with the 'telephone tree', fundraising, helping puppies-in-training, and recording news and information.
