A Vision for the Needy

Photograph by Cathy and Mark Lyons

Millions of people around the world are afflicted with impaired vision that could be corrected with prescription eyeglasses — if only the glasses were affordable. In some countries eyeglasses cost more than many people make in a month.

The Gift of Sight program seeks to help such people by providing free eye exams and prescription glasses.

The program is run by the LensCrafters Foundation, a charity in Cincinnati that raises $3-million a year in cash and donations of eyeglass frames, lenses, and lab equipment. LensCrafters seeks gifts from employees of its 865 LensCrafters stores in the United States and Canada, from community foundations, and from companies that produce eye-care products.

The money raised by the foundation pays for optometrists and other employees of LensCrafters to travel around the world to give free eye exams. The program, which has helped three million people since it was started in 1994, also provides LensCrafters with a way to build good will with its employees and customers by involving them in a charitable cause.

In North America, LensCrafters vans — named “Seemore” and “Iris” — travel the continent to examine and fit thousands of poor children with new glasses. LensCrafters also teams up with Lions Clubs International, a service organization, to administer free eye exams and distribute glasses donated to LensCrafters stores. This year the program plans to help people in Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Paraguay, and Peru.

Here, Albert Espinosa, a LensCrafters store manager in Cerritos, Calif., adjusts a pair of glasses that were donated to a member of the Quechua Indian tribe in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia.