Giving Back: The Gift Of Sight
The hustle and bustle of the holiday season has everyone out and about shopping to find gifts for friends and loved ones. However, vision is an amazing gift that is often taken for granted. Unfortunately one in 12 American adults cannot afford proper vision care, along with over a billion people around the world. However, there are several charitable ways to give the gift of sight this holiday season.
Donating your glasses is a wonderful way to give the gift of sight to those who are less fortunate. Regardless if you no longer need them due to clear vision resulting from a vision correction procedure or if you just get a new pair, your old glasses can be cleaned and repaired. They are then given to those with the same prescription, or very close, that might otherwise not be able to afford glasses.
To learn more about glasses donation, visit www.lionsclub.org or www.onesight.org.
Another way to give the gift of sight is through organ donation. Eye donation involves just the cornea, which is the protective front layer that allows us to see, and not the actual iris itself. Whenever you sign up to be an organ donor, you can also opt to be a tissue donor as well which has less restrictions than standard organ donation. Fortunately, corneal donations do not require the need for a “match,” because donors are universal. It does not matter the blood type, age, eye color, or vision quality.
To learn more about cornea donation, visit www.organdonor.gov.
In addition, there are several charitable and non-profit eye organizations across the world that can make a difference, including:
- PreventBlindness America
- SEE International
- Two Billion Eyes
- Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity