The staff at Cochrane’s Mountain View Optometry is once again working with the charity Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) next month to provide eye care for people in developing countries.
Kaila Pharis, optometric assistant at Mountain View Optometry and organizer for the event, said the focus this year is to provide more awareness to the community about where the contributions are going. “Just $5 can provide an eye exam and a pair of glasses for one person.”
Pharis said they would again be running a 50/50 draw and silent auction Oct. 30. Last year, they raised $500 in tickets and they hope to reach $1,000 this year. Items such as Maui Jim sunglasses, Nikon and Zeisss lenses and contact lenses are up for grabs, as well as a few things donated by local businesses. Tickets can be bought at Mountain View’s office in Cochrane (404 First St. West) or their Crowfoot location in Calgary for $5.
According to OGS, it was founded as a means of mobilizing support from the global eye care industry to help eliminate the backlog of people who are needlessly blind or vision impaired – currently estimated at more than 600 million worldwide.
It funds the development of sustainable eye and vision care projects in communities where these do not currently exist.
“We don’t realize how lucky we are that we have access to eye care here in Canada,” Pharis said. “There are so many people all over the world who do not have any way of getting the basic care they need, and we can make a huge difference in many of their lives. Just an eye exam and a pair of glasses can change someone’s life drastically.”
The optometry clinic will also be donating Oct. 21 exam fees to go toward World Sight Day (which falls on Oct. 8) – an annual day of awareness to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. Last year they raised over $2,000.
For more information visit facebook.com/MVOptometry or mvopt.ca.
