Community Outreach & Charity Initiatives
At Overlake EyeCare we are committed to community and global service.
Our doctors volunteer regularly on international projects and here at home to help the many people in Washington who do not have access to health care. We help support the following projects.
InfantSEE
Through InfantSEE®, our doctors will provide a one-time, comprehensive eye assessment to infants in their first year of life, offering early detection of potential eye and vision problems at no cost regardless of income. You can find out more at the Infant SEE website.
EyeCare America
EyeCare America is a program sponsored by The American Academy of Ophthalmology. This program helps provide care to patients with cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetes. You can visit the EyeCare America website for more information or to see if you qualify.
The Millionair Club
We are part of the team that provide eye care to the homeless through the Vision Center at the Millionair Club Charity in downtown Seattle. You can get more information about services offered through the Millionair Club Charity on their website.
Vision USA
We also participate in the Vision USA program. More than 40 million low-income, working people in the United States cannot afford the cost of routine eye care or the health insurance that covers it. As income earners, they don't qualify for government aid and private health-care assistance. Now a year-round program, Vision USA can help these people by providing basic eye health and vision care services free of charge to the many uninsured low-income people and their families who have no other means of obtaining care. Vision USA, started nationwide in 1991, is a program developed by doctors of optometry who are members of the American Optometric Association. Approximately 340,000 low income working Americans have benefited from free eye examinations through Vision USA. You can visit the Vision USA for more information and to find out if you qualify.
Optometry Giving Sight
Optometry Giving Sight was established in 2003 to address the needs of the 300 million men, women and children around the world who are blind or vision impaired simply because they don’t have access to an eye exam and a pair of glasses. Why? Because in some countries there are not enough trained eye care personnel and there is no infrastructure to support these desperately needed eye care services.
Optometry Giving Sight is a global fundraising campaign reaching out to the more than 200,000 optometrists around the world, and their nearly 325 million patients, to fund the solution.
Optometry Giving Sight supports programs that offer not only eye exams and glasses in countries with little or no access to them, but that establish the infrastructure and train the local human resources required for sustainable, quality vision care.
At the end of 2007, Optometry Giving Sight distributed US$1,000,000 to projects that will give sight to people with refractive error blindness and impaired vision in Africa, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Indigenous Australia. The funds have been raised by optometrists, their staff, patients and optometric students in Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe.
Optometry Giving Sight is a joint initiative of the World Optometry Foundation (WOF), the International Centre for Eyecare Education (ICEE) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and supports the goals of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, an initiative of IAPB and the World Health Organization (WHO). VISION 2020 aims to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020, in order to give all people in the world the right to sight. You can visit Optometry Giving Sight for more information and to donate.
