More than 9,000 pairs gifted through Lions Club efforts
More than 9,000 pairs of donated eyeglasses, sorted and labeled inside 50 boxes, were loaded Thursday morning from a Bellefontaine residence, bound for a mission to help individuals in developing nations to receive the gift of sight and in turn a major improvement in their life circumstances.
The eyeglasses were collected through efforts by a number of Lions Clubs, both locally in Logan County and throughout the region, for donation to the Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity organization, which travels overseas and in the U.S. to provide quality free vision care services to those in need through short-term clinics.
Representatives from the Bluffton Lions Club, Barbara Plaugher and Ed Yeager, traveled to city resident Darlene Roll’s home to pick up the boxes of eyeglasses that were neatly stacked and prepared in her garage through the help of volunteers, including by Bellefontaine Lions Club member Marilyn Molton, who was on site as well.
The donations that had been collected since November from generous area residents were en route to the VOSH recycling site at the Pandora United Methodist Church.
There, the eyeglasses will be processed, cleaned, inspected by a lensometer to determine their prescription, and will be further sorted and boxed according to prescription for future VOSH trips, some of which have included to the nations of Romania, Mexico, Honduras and Haiti.
Roll, a Waynesfield Lions Club member and Bellefontaine Lions Club associate member, said the mission and volunteer effort is a labor of love for her family, along with fellow Lions Club members. Years ago, her late husband, Barney, created approximately 300 wooden Lions Club eyeglasses donation boxes that can still be found at donation sites around the community, including at area businesses, churches, libraries, schools, banks, restaurants and etc.
Individuals are encouraged to donate their used regular eyeglasses, bi-focals and tri-focals, with cases if they are available, or without cases.
“My husband was a big proponent of the local eyeglasses drive, and we want to see it continue,” Roll said before heading to Pandora herself, after the multitude of boxes couldn’t all fit in the Bluffton representative’s extended cab pickup. “It can be such a life-changing gift to people in other countries, and it’s a simple gesture that we can do to help out.
“Helen Keller in 1925 urged the Lions Clubs to be the ‘knights of the blind in the crusade,’ so we take that mission very seriously, now almost a 100 years later.”
VOSH International reports that more than 2.5 billion people in the world need glasses due to a refractive error. Of those with clinical need, 1.1 billion, or one in seven people, lack access to glasses.
“The lack of vision translates to failing at school, jobs, health and personal lives. Those who cannot see are too often mired in poverty,” according to www.vosh.org.
“Our goal is to eradicate untreated refractive error, that is, to help people see again by correcting their vision with glasses. And once they can see, they can improve the quality of their lives and their own vision for a future for generations to come.”
Of the 9,010 eyeglasses in this local shipment, the donations came from Logan, Auglaize, Mercer, Union, Champaign and Clark counties, including from the following Lions Clubs: Waynesfield, Bellefontaine, Huntsville-Indian Lake, West Liberty, Cridersville, St. Marys, Celina, Coldwater, Mendon, Rockford, Marysville, Urbana, Springfield National Trail and North Hampton, along with the Maria Stein American Legion Auxiliary, and Roll’s friends in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
The Bellefontaine resident also serves as the Northwest Ohio Lions Eyecare Foundation president, an organization that assists individuals without insurance to obtain needed procedures, such as cataract surgery or costly cornea transplants.
She said the eyeglasses collection continues for an upcoming shipment, and area residents can make donations at the following Logan County sites:
• Eye care providers — Rush Optical/Dr. Terebuh, 1107 Rush Ave.; North Main Eyecare/Dr. Gamble, 1008 N. Main St.; Professional Vision Services, 1711 S. Main St.; Family Vision and Eye Care, 315 E. Columbus Ave.; Wal-Mart, 2281 S. Main St.
• Medical providers — Mary Rutan Pediatrics, 118 Dowell Ave.
• Libraries — Logan County Libraries, Knowlton library, DeGraff branch, West Liberty branch; and Dr. Earl Sloan Library, Zanesfield.
• Restaurants — Homecoming Family Restaurant, 1330 N. U.S. Route 68.
• Churches — Bellefontaine First United Methodist, 201 N. Main St.; First Lutheran Church, 208 W. Sandusky Ave.; Stony Creek Church, 3570 S. County Road 31.
• Schools — Benjamin Logan Elementary, Benjamin Logan Middle School.
• Businesses/other locations — Goodwill, 1933 S. Main St.; Logan Auction, 315 S. Elm St.; Richwood Bank, 4848 Napoleon St., Huntsville; Civista Bank, 205 S. Detroit St., West Liberty; Keith’s Cut & Curls, 120 N. Detroit St., West Liberty; West Liberty Post Office.