Davis Vision's Focus on America® and Sight From America® Programs Impact Thousands of People Nationwide in 2010

PLAINVIEW, N.Y., Jan. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Davis Vision's ongoing commitment to expand its outreach efforts spurred the launch of three new community partnerships and increased vision screenings and services to underserved populations nationwide in 2010. More than $1.5 in services have been offered since inception of the Focus on America® program in 2008.

A Boston organization, hopeFound, which is devoted to ending homelessness in Massachusetts, teamed up with Davis Vision and the New England College of Optometry to provide free eye exams and prescription eyewear to hopeFound clients. This is the first time the organization has been able to provide vision services to its clients.    

Similar vision care services are provided in Memphis, where Baptist Memorial Health Care's mobile health care clinic provides medical services to homeless and uninsured individuals. Davis Vision fabricates prescription eyewear for patients who receive vision exams at the clinic.

New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority (NMPSIA) and Davis Vision kicked off a vision health initiative to provide free vision services to thousands of students in all NMPSIA districts statewide.

Davis Vision also announced the start of its new literacy campaign – "Bring a Book. Get a Book. See a Book." Children who are unable to see are unable to read, and Davis Vision will highlight the link between proper vision care in children and their ability to read. Vision screenings in conjunction with public libraries are already scheduled in Miami, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Children who attend a Focus on America® vision screening not held in a library or school will receive a free book through Davis Vision's partnership arrangement with Scholastic Books.

"Our new literacy initiative aims to not only raise awareness on eye health, but to help kids develop a lifelong passion for reading," said Laura Dyer, Davis Vision's assistant vice president of community relations. "Half of our 52 scheduled vision screenings in 2011 will be held in libraries around the country, and we will donate books at the events and partner with publishers to encourage reading and stress its connection to proper eye care."

Vision screenings are regularly provided to uninsured and underinsured children in conjunction with schools, political leaders and community organizations. Current community partners include Neediest Kids-Bridge to Success in the Washington, D.C. area, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and Health Care for the Homeless in Philadelphia, through which more than $600,000 worth of vision services have been provided.

In addition, millions of dollars worth of eyeglass frames have been donated to organizations such as VOSH International and New Eyes for the Needy, for use in places where vision care is not available or severely limited. In 2010, nearly 1,700 readers and multiple pieces of optometric equipment were donated to the Book Wish Foundation by Davis Vision and its sister companies, Viva International and Eye Care Centers of America, for residents of a suburb in Ghana. Many there have never had an eye exam or owned a pair of eyeglasses.

SOURCE Davis Vision