Prevent Blindness Receives $3,500 CVS Caremark Community Grant
Grant to Prevent Blindness is Part of CVS Caremark’s Commitment to Supporting Health Education and Awareness Programs
CHICAGO (Dec. 4, 2013)–Prevent Blindness announced today that it has received a $3,500 CVS Caremark Community Grant. The Community Grants Program was created by CVS Caremark as part of its commitment to building healthier communities. The grants support programs that are focused on providing health education and awareness. Specifically, this grant will help support the new Year of Children’s Vision program, including a focus group with Head Start parents about vision health and a half-day of professional education at the National Head Start Association’s 30th Annual Parent Conference and Family Engagement Institute (Atlanta) on Dec. 10, 2013.
The federal Office of Head Start currently requires all children in Head Start programs to be screened for vision problems within 45 days of a child’s enrollment. The goal of Year of Children’s Vision Program is to provide national guidance to staff of Head Start, Early Head Start and other earlychildhood programs to standardize approaches to vision screening, improve follow-up for eye care for children who fail the vision screening, provide family-friendly educational information and consult with some of the nation’s leading pediatric eye care providers to ensure best practices for children’s eye health.
“Keeping children’s eyes healthy is what our organization was founded on more than 100 years ago,” said Hugh R. Parry, president and CEO of Prevent Blindness. “By joining us to promote the Year of Children’s Vision program, through our National Center for Children’s Vision and Eye Health, CVS Caremark is demonstrating its commitment to helping provide our children with a brighter future. We thank them for their support.”
“As a pharmacy innovation company, we are committed to helping people on their path to better health and we believe that optimal community health starts with education and awareness,” said Eileen Howard Boone, Senior Vice President, Corporate Philanthropy & Sustainability, CVS Caremark. “We are proud to support the work that Prevent Blindness does in the community and we look forward to working with them in fulfilling their program’s mission.”
Prevent Blindness was selected to receive a grant through the CVS Caremark Community Grants 2013 application process. Grants were awarded to programs that raise awareness of important health issues, focus on chronic disease management and offer training and other tools that communities need to help them on their path to better health. The goal of the CVS Caremark Community Grants Program is to help build healthier communities.
For more information on the Year of Children’s Vision program, general children’s eye health or Prevent Blindness, please call 1-800-331-2020 or visit www.preventblindness.org.
About CVS Caremark
CVS Caremark is dedicated to helping people on their path to better health as the largest integrated pharmacy company in the United States. Through the company’s more than 7,400 CVS/pharmacy stores; its leading pharmacy benefit manager serving more than 60 million plan members; and its retail health clinic system, the largest in the nation with more than 600 MinuteClinic locations, it is a market leader in mail order, retail and specialty pharmacy, retail clinics, and Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans. As a pharmacy innovation company with an unmatched breadth of capabilities, CVS Caremark continually strives to improve health and lower costs by developing new approaches such as its unique Pharmacy Advisor program that helps people with chronic diseases such as diabetes obtain and stay on their medications. Find more information about how CVS Caremark is reinventing pharmacy for better health at info.cvscaremark.com.
Download a copy of the CVS Caremark Community Grant press release.
