Although most people see this trip as me giving to the people of the Dominican Republican, the truth is that most of the time up until now I have been asking a lot of other people to do a lot of giving to make this whole thing happen.
I asked my friends, family and Facebook community to give financially whatever they could and they did freely and generously.
I asked my business suppliers, my employers and my professional associations for time off, extra discounts, money, professional skills and support and they willingly have provided everything I asked for.
The Optician Association of Canada and Ontario Optician Association for sponsoring our Teams work shirts
Not just old equipment but a fairly new Auto-refractor from Axis Medical, a New Ultrasonic cleaner and new reading glasses from Kleargo
The patience and help of Paul and Kathy Rooks at 20/20 Optical Service in London accepting shipments, using their suppliers and accounts and storing all of the gifts until we leave.
New glasses and reclaimed glasses from Corey at CPS Labs in London, doing all the edging and finishing at no charge.
It is an awesome responsibility to be entrusted with other people's money to help others. I have been careful with every decision about what was going to be donated, what needed to be purchased new and taken with us, what needed to be taken as cash so that the people, who will continue the eye care long after I'm gone, can purchase what I didn't bring or what they run out of.
Glasses being collected cleaned and neutralized by Opticians at the Costco in Courtenay BC,
from Deborah Perry, Licensed Optician in Saskatoon, SK
Which was an education in and of itself. In this time of reduce, reuse, recycle, it was interesting to have a reality check about how this applies to eyeglasses.
First, as a License Optician, I know the limitations of trying to refit even a new pair of glasses. Measurements for glasses are done to the millimeter. What are the chances of 2 people having the exact same prescription and then have the exact same shape of nose and having their eyes the same distance apart? You only have a possibility if you have single vision for distance or reading or a lined Bi-focal. If you have progressive lenses, the adaption and distortions really don't leave enough room for error so they really can't be re-fit.
Then there are the frames. Most frames are less than an 1/8 of an inch of material, metal or plastic, that is worn-all day every day, for 2 or more years. Lenses are made from plastic or polycarbonate with coatings on them.
We would have bags and bags of glasses just dropped off at the stores. Sorting through glasses that were often 10-40years old just bundled into plastic shopping bags often brought out treasures like this:
Broken, lenses, missing, held together with twist-ties, completely unwearable, let alone redeemable. I was shocked that people even thought to give something like this. If someone couldn't repair it for you, how were they going to repair it for someone else? It did make me completely grateful that I didn't work at Goodwill and have to daily go through those donation bins. It will also make me much more mindful of what I donate in the future.
Even the best of the donated glasses took hours of time consuming work to replace nose pads, temple tips and then to measure the RX of each pair. I am truly grateful to 2 Student Opticians Stephanie Chmara-Rose and Meghan McHaffie at LensCrafters and Sears Optical for the and hours and hours of cleaning, neutralizing and repairing. I was very thankful for a few snow days that gave us the time to work through the hundreds of cast off glasses.
It makes you wonder about the practicality of reusing glasses, about what better options there might be, about how my profession and our industry might be able to better for our clients and for our environment but I certainly don't know what the answer is.
As tedious as this labour was, it really did make those shipments from BC and Saskachewan an even bigger blessing as I knew how much work had gone into each pair.
Lesson learned for everyone when donated glasses:
1-Only single vision or lined bi-focal, no progressive lenses
2- Frames only if they are less than 5 yrs old and have no damage.
3- If your lenses are too scratched for you to see out of, they are too scratched for someone else to see out of
4-If you don't carry your glasses around in a plastic bag with 20 other pairs, don't donate them that way either. If you do, don't tell your Optician.
5- If they can't be fixed for you, they can't be fixed for someone else.
Packing up all that we have collected, I hope that it is enough, that it is what is needed to help, that I haven't forgot something very simple that could solve a very big problem. I hope to serve well with all the resources that everyone has entrusted me with.
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