The Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight & Hearing
NEW:
As of Nov. 2000 the foundation name was
changed to
the Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight and Hearing.
The culmination of years of effort
by Past District Governor Jack Radford, Past
International Director Chet Lesh and Past Zone Chairman Jack Smalley, the
Lions Sight Conservation Foundation came into being
in 1969, as the managing body for the Lions Eye Bank of Washington and
Northern Idaho. The Chairman of the Board of Directors
for the year 2001 - 2002 is Dr. Tom Proteau of the Bremerton Central Lions
club.
The first year, the Lions Eye
Bank had one employee and provided 45 corneas for
transplant, with an expense budget of $17,000. Now, some 40 years later,
the Eye Bank is one of the Foundation's largest,
most visible programs, with 13 full-time and twelve part-time employees, a
'01-'02 budget of over $4.0 million,
having provided over 2,400 corneas for transplant in 2000. The Lions Sight
Conservation Foundation and the
Lions Hearing Foundation were merged, to gain the immense benefits to be
gained through joint administration.
A 501(c)3 non-profit charitable
organization, over 80% of donated funds directly support the
Foundation's humanitarian services, including research, training, matching
grants, transplants and other support programs, as
follows:
See any Lions Club member in
Washington or Northern Idaho about the idea of contributing to this worthy
activity financially, or through the organ donation program.
Hardly a "bank", it is a busy,
high-tech medical laboratory for processing and
evaluating donor eyes for quality corneal tissue. Since formation, the Eye
Bank has provided over 20,000 cornea transplants.
Providing eye tissue recovery and distribution, family support and
bereavement programs, our highly-trained technicians
coordinate the process from the beginning, through screening and placement
of tissue with surgeons. We are now a leader in
the national and international cornea transplant community.
Started in 1996, this
specially-equipped unit travels to communities throughout
Washington and Northern Idaho. It provides free health screening for
vision, glaucoma, hearing, diabetes and blood pressure.
The Lions Health Screening Unit is staffed by local Lions Club members and
community health professional volunteers. In 2000,
the LHSU screened over 25,000 individuals, including over 8,000 children.
The Foundation funds the
operation of five low vision clinics. These grant
supported clinics, located in Bellevue, Spokane, and Vancouver,
Washington. The newest clinic, the Lions Pediatric Low
Vision Clinic is located in Silverdale Washington and is funded by the
Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation and the people
with visual impairments. Trained low vision specialists prescribe
appropriate visual aid devices such as magnifiers,
monoculars, and closed circuit televisions for enlarging printed materials.
Working with local Lions Clubs,
the Foundation funds a variety of vision and
hearing-related medical procedures for individuals in need. This program
also matches, dollar for dollar, any funds raised by
local Lions Clubs to help a sight- or hearing-impaired individual who has
financial need. In cases where the Lions Club needs
to purchase the equipment prior to raising the money, interest-free
Foundation loans are available.
The Hearing Aid Bank is dedicated
to helping individuals hear well in every
community in Washington and Northern Idaho. To this end, it collects and
redistributes donated hearing aids, that have been
recased and recalibrated, to hard of hearing individuals who could not
otherwise afford them.
On occasion, the Foundation makes
grants to Lions Clubs for special vision- and
hearing-related projects in Washington and Northern Idaho. Such grants
might be for the purpose of purchasing adaptive
equipment for sight- or hearing-impaired, for vision or hearing research,
for vision- and hearing-related scholarships, or
other special sight or hearing projects. Under this program, a large grant
was given to The Lions Low Vision Task Force to
study needs of low vision individuals.
These include Lions Vision
Training grants to Dept. of Ophthalmology, UW, to allow
medical students to study eye diseases; Vision USA, a grant to provide eye
glasses for the working poor; the Lions/VOSH
Clinic at the Millionaire Club; the Jack Radford Memorial Award, presented
annually to an individual of notable
accomplishments in the area of sight conservation. |
