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About the Foundation
The mobile clinic access the very remote areas Everyone get's their blood pressure taken
The examination room in the mobile clinic is well equipped What happens to the used eyeglasses that the are collected and given to EyeCare WeCare Foundation? Everyone should have the opportunity to join us on a medical vision mission to the Philippines some day. They need to receive the hugs and witness the uncontrolled tears of joy that come when people, especially the young kids have their vision restored. In many cases it is the first time in their lives that they have seen clearly. I cannot describe it – it is a life changing experience for many. What a miracle. Of course that didn’t just happen by chance. These each pair of donated eyeglasses have traveled many miles and have undergone many phases in order be able to carry out their purpose, to change lives. When we receive them I first sort them, repair many of the frames or put lenses back in frames; Ellen and I clean them by running them through a dishwasher cycle; then we box them up in large boxes and transport them to Tacoma LBC an ocean transport company and pay to have them shipped to the Philippines. Each box costs $65 to ship. I delivered 2 boxes Thursday evening after work and 5 boxes last night after work in order to get them to the Philippines in time for our next mission in May 2010. They will be delivered 6 weeks later at our home there Negros Occidental; We have a paid optician there, at $6 /day, who individually reads the powers of the lenses, places them in plastic bags, writes the power on the plastic bags, they are placed into one of three boxes. They are Men’s glasses, Women’s glasses or children’s glasses. Each of those boxes are further sorted as to farsighted or nearsighted; then sorted even further to bifocals or single vision. You end up with 10 categories Women Single Vision Farsighted Men Single Vision Farsighted Women Single Vision Nearsighted Men Single Vision Nearsighted Women Bifocal Farsightedness Men Bifocal Farsighted Women Bifocal Nearsighted Men Bifocal Nearsighted Children Nearsighted Children Farsighted Each of these 10 categories are sorted down into powers of the right eye starting at zero power placed in ascending order. We color code each category container so when volunteers remove the containers off the mobile clinic, they simply stack the green, for example, which is Men Single Vision Farsighted, into one stack and the Red which would be the Men Bifocal Farsighted eyeglasses. Each of the containers (which are colored and labeled as to Sex and Type will also have a power range written on them, for example 0 - +1.00 or +1.00 to +2.00. Each color category can be placed into power order very easily by any volunteer. Now you have the 10 categories with their containers each with a different color and arranged in ascending powers. When the patient arrives at the dispensing area and hands the prescription to the volunteer dispenser, the dispenser looks at it to see what type and power and goes right to the box, finds one or two pair that are very close to their prescription (we carry around 50,000 pair with us) and returns to the patient to let them look through the eyeglasses and see which pair works the best or in many cases, the ones they look the best in – ha, ha . They usually leave the area very happy and is awaiting the benefit of restored vision. NOW COME THE TEARS AND HUGS SHOUTS OF JOY. As you can see, it is quite a process. Without the eyeglasses there are no tears and hugs, no changed lives. poor people. When one looks at each pair of eyeglasses is received we see a very emotional recipient.
The containers that in which the eyeglasses are placed to find the prescriptions quickly
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