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Optometry Giving Sight recognizes major donors, sponsors
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SAN FRANCISCO - The international charity Optometry Giving Sight hosted a dinner here during the Academy 2010 to honor its major donors and sponsors and to celebrate their achievements and impact on blindness prevention and low vision throughout the world.
 From left to right: Greg Pearl, Steve Schock, OD, Rick Franz, OD, Sylvia Franz, OD, Brien Holden, OD, PhD, Juan Carlos, OD, Sidney Stern, OD, Victor Connors, OD, John A. McCall Jr., OD Optometry Giving Sight |
Members of the Chairman's Club, a group of major donors, were recognized for their support. These donors include Victor Connors, OD; Steve Schock, OD; Sidney Stern, OD; Brien Holden, OD, PhD; Mario Gutierrez, OD; and VOSH President Greg Pearl. Several more doctors committed to an increased funding level during the dinner and were recognized as new club members, including John A. McCall Jr., OD; Rick Franz, OD; and Sylvia Franz, OD.
Optometry Giving Sight also gave thanks to major corporate donors, including CIBA Vision, the Brien Holden Vision Institute, Marchon Eyewear, Vision Source, All About Vision, Abbott Medical Optics Australia and Essilor Australia.
The support from these major donors and sponsors provide funding for projects in more than 18 underserved communities throughout the world.
Speaking at the dinner, Prof. Holden told the audience that their efforts had helped raise awareness of the needs of people with refractive error blindness and low vision and to fund projects that trained local people to become degree trained optometrists through the establishment of regional schools of optometry in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
"The support provided to and by Optometry Giving Sight has mobilized additional resources around the world," he said at the dinner. "More than 100 countries have now developed national eye care plans through the advocacy provided by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, and more are following the Australian government's lead of making blindness prevention a priority in their international development budgets."
Prof. Holden noted that Optometry Giving Sight had played a key role in funding the recent World Congress on Refractive Error/World Conference on Optometric Education in South Africa, which were attended by more than 800 eye care professionals from around the region and the world.
OGS also provide important seed funding to a project in India that would seek to train more than 100,000 optometrists by 2030 and ultimately provide eye care services to more than 1,100 million people, he said. This information is provided by PRIMARY CARE OPTOMETRY NEWS as a service to its readers.