Leading Vision Industry Groups Continue to Help Protect Children’s Eyes from Sports-Related Injuries for Third Annual Campaign
FAIRFIELD, NJ (July 16, 2012)– Just in time for back-to-school, Prevent Blindness America, The Coalition to Prevent Sports Eye Injuries and Liberty Sport, will continue to support September 2012 as Sports Eye Injury Prevention Awareness Month in an effort to educate the public on the importance as to wearing proper eye protection while playing sports.
The three organizations joined efforts two years ago to launch an awareness campaign to Eye Care Professionals, specifically those who are Sports Eye Injury Prevention Centers, and reached approximately 5,000 retailers, providing them with the materials they need to make eye safety a priority for kids when playing sports.
“This year our target is to add an additional 2,500 retailers for a total of 7,500 accounts supporting the September month campaign”, stated Anthony M. DiChiara, CEO of Liberty Sport.
Hugh R. Parry, president and CEO of Prevent Blindness America, stated that “through our partnership with The Coalition to Prevent Sports Eye Injuries and Liberty Sport, we have been able to successfully provide retailers and the public with the important information and materials they need to help keep our children’s eyes safe from sports eye injuries. We encourage everyone to sign-up for this unique program to help promote a lifetime of healthy vision through the proper eye protection.”
“We all recognize that it is important to continue to get the message out to patients, so to make it easy we have put together a ‘September is Sports Eye Injury Prevention Awareness Month’ kit containing both the following in-store support materials and consumer outreach materials,” continued Linda Laube, VP of Marketing for Liberty Sport. (Kit contents and photos listed below)
In conjunction, Liberty Sport is hosting its Third Annual Sports Center Contest from August through October, details of which are available on the “Retailer Only” section of the LibertySport.com website.
“Preventing Sports Eye Injuries is my passion,” says Paul Berman, O.D., F.A.A.O and Chairman for The Coalition to Prevent Sports Eye Injuries. “After working with Liberty Sport to convert Eye Care Professional offices to Sports Eye Injury Prevention Centers over the past three years, we are pleased by the results of their internal studies showing that by instituting the steps of the SEIPC, their office sales have increased an average of 150 percent, while also leading to a greater decrease in this tragic loss of the priceless gift of sight. Further supporting the Sport Eye Injury Prevention Centers with this annual campaign should prevent the needless loss of sight and blindness through eye injuries that occur while people are playing sports.”
###
About Liberty Sport
Liberty Sport is a time tested company that is owned and operated by its founders, the DiChiara family, and which specializes in the engineering, design and distribution of protective sports eyewear and rx’able sunwear. For over eight decades, Liberty has supplied the professional eye care community with the industry’s leading protective sports eyewear with its Rec-Specs and F8 brands. Liberty Sport has been at the forefront of the growing movement to promote eye safety for children participating in scholastic and recreational sports. Today, Liberty Sport sells and distributes its eyewear to eye care professionals and leading optical chains worldwide.
