Fact checked byHeather Biele

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August 17, 2023
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Optometry Giving Sight announces 2023 World Sight Day Challenge

Fact checked byHeather Biele

The nonprofit organization Optometry Giving Sight has launched its 2023 World Sight Day Challenge, with this year’s theme, “Giving Together, Seeing Forever,” celebrating the collective optometry community caring for those in need.

According to an OGS press release, the challenge goes through the end of October, highlighted by World Sight Day on Oct. 12. Practices or companies can participate in the challenge by donating or raising funds, all of which go toward grants for programs to help establish optometry schools, vision centers and optical labs in underserved communities.

girl wearing glasses
Optometry Giving Sight’s annual fundraiser, World Sight Day Challenge, launches this month with the theme “Giving Together, Seeing Forever.” Image: Adobe Stock.

“The projects we support are almost entirely funded by eye care professionals, optometry practices and companies within this industry,” Lois Schoenbrun, FAAO, OGS executive director, said in the release. “Dollars donated help deliver access to eye care for mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles and more.”

For the past 20 years, OGS has provided basic eye care services to more than 8 million people, helped trained more than 14,000 eye care professionals, established more than 130 vision centers and served people in more than 40 countries, the release stated.

“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,” challenge participant Greg Pearl, OD, from Pearl Optometry in Norwalk, California, said in the release. “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 1 day of eye exam fees for the World Sight Day Challenge, it would change everything.”