Aug. 21, 2023 — Optometry Giving Sight has announced the theme for the 2023 World Sight Day Challenge, “Giving Together, Seeing Forever,” to celebrate the collective power of the optometry community. The challenge is the organization’s largest annual fundraiser toward its mission of eradicating uncorrected refractive error through growing and expanding optometry worldwide.
To The challenge runs through the end of October, with World Sight Day taking place Oct. 12. Those interested can lead fundraising efforts at their practice or company. For a toolkit with ideas and resources, click here. Others can make a one-time or recurring donation here.
Optometry Giving Sights uses funds raised to provide grants to programs focused on long-term solutions, such as establishing optometry schools, vision centers, and optical labs in underserved communities. Over the last 20 years, this funding has provided basic eyecare services to more than 8 million people and training for 14,000 eyecare personnel in addition to establishing more than 130 vision centers.
“The projects we support are almost entirely funded by eyecare professionals, optometry practices, and companies within this industry,” says Lois Schoenbrun, executive director of Optometry Giving Sight. “Dollars donated help deliver access to eye care…We can only help these families with the help of your families—whether that is the ‘family’ at home, in your optometry practice with staff and patients, or at your company.”
“In some of the most underserved areas of the world, the most basic eye care keeps kids in school and people at work, enabling them to provide for their families and even bring communities out of poverty,” says Greg Pearl, O.D., of Pearl Optometry in Norwalk, CA, a participant of the challenge. “This cause belongs to optometry. We are the only ones who will address this, and we can do it together. If every one of us donated even one day of eye exam fees for the World Sight Day Challenge, it would change everything.”
For more information: givingsight.org.