Early Vision Matters
Our Northern California affiliate has just launched an awareness and fundraising campaign called Early Vision Matters to support their flagship program for low-income preschoolers, See Well to Learn. Started in 2012, the program brings high technology vision screenings into the Bay Area’s neediest low-income preschool classrooms, screening all children. For those that fail, they bring back their Eye Bus with an onboard pediatric optometrist and bilingual health educator. Accompanied by a parent, the child gets a full dilated eye exam and then, based on results, the parent and child selects special Miraflex frames designed to fit preschoolers and counseling with the health educator to explain exam results, what it means for their child, what will happen over the next 90 days during the time the See Well to Learn team works with the parent, child and school staff to ensure the child wears their glasses. See Well to Learn has a compliance rate of 79%–meaning 8 out of 10 children prescribed glasses are wearing them 60 days after they were provided. This is substantially higher than other programs.
Please help support See Well to Learn so they can continue to provide this program free of charge to the low-income families they serve. The California Optometric Association recently featured See Well to Learn in their quarterly news magazine. Read the article here: Pediatrics: A Public Health Perspective
