Somers Lions Den: Working to Promote Healthy Vision for Local Youth

SOMERS, N.Y. - It’s a little-known fact that the foundation of Lions Club International was started by a meeting between Helen Keller and the Founder of Lions International, Melvin Jones. Keller asked Jones to form a group to become the “Knights of the Blind.” Decades later, this partnership has blossomed into a worldwide service organization with over 1.2 million members working toward our motto, “We Serve.”

Although the holiday rush is in full swing, we would like to ask everyone to take a few minutes to think about the health of youngsters’ eyes. Many will receive new handheld devices to play games, communicate or watch videos. The human eye was never designed for the intensity of this use. As adults we even experience the fatigue of constant screen usage. You can only imagine the impact on young developing eyes.

The Somers Lions Club has been screening infants and young children for early eye irregularities for many years. We have referred some of these children for further testing when anomalies are found. That has resulted in many children getting the help they need at an early stage when it’s most critical. In the past two years the technology of screening devices for finding irregular eye patterns has improved dramatically. The Somers Lions Club purchase of the cutting-edge PlusOptix camera has allowed the club to screen the eyes of over 600 children in the past two years.

Somers Lions Club will be participating in a special KidsSight Initiative sponsored by Lions Club USA. This weeklong program will take place Jan. 12 – 18 with the goal of screening as many children as possible during that period. With this in mind, we are asking the community to help us identify opportunities to screen as many children as possible from ages 3-6 years old. Your child or grandchild may already have been screened at a site we have visited. We recently screened 110 children at Primrose Elementary School. We are open to providing a screening at any location for any parent or guardian who may have concerns about the child’s eyesight – or may simply benefit from the peace of mind that their child’s eyesight is healthy.

Do you know a pre-school, daycare provider or other organization that would allow a screening? We can help! Screenings can take less than a minute and provide vital insight into any potential problems when reviewed by an eye doctor.

Please join us in this important initiative and support our mission to promote healthy eyesight. This is an easy, quick and painless process! Simply contact us at (914)-302-4546 or email Lion VP Glen Karoglanian at glen.karoglanian@somerslionscf.org and we will provide a consent form to allow us to screen the child and provide you with the results.

All screening information is private and the information is never provided to anyone other than the parent or guardian. We are planning a screening date of Jan. 12, so please respond by Jan. 10 if you are interested.
Thank you for taking time to help ensure every child in our community has healthy eyesight!