OneSight Houston Clinic Feb 2010

Day 12: Packing Up and Heading Home

2010-03-03T22:53:00.001-08:00

Day 11: Very Special Day

2010-02-25T11:17:00.000-08:00

Today was heart warming for so many reasons. Our last group of students at clinic was a group of special needs kids and they stole our hearts.

We wrapped up the day with our pinning ceremony which is one of the most touching moments of our clinic experience.

On every clinic we receive an alumni pin which is presented by a fellow team member. This is a very emotional time as we get the opportunity to thank each other for the past two weeks we have spent together and share a few special things about the team member you are pinning.

Day 10: Hump Day

2010-02-25T11:13:00.002-08:00

It's sad to think that our clinic is in it's last few days.

We aren't just here to provide glasses but to inspire the communities we visit and encourage the kids we meet and each other. We have met kids who are saving for their first car, looking into being a ________. Sometimes just carrying on a conversation can mean the world.

Today Carson showed this young lady her eye and even let her help him out with te next few kids in line.

Along with meeting some really great kids we have had the opportunity to work with amazing volunteers. Pictured here is Art, he has worked with us for several days and has been a huge help in the lab. The local Best Buys have provided several volunteers to help as well as local optometry students.

On every clinic the team hosts a silent auction to raise money for the foundation. Tonight we did just that. The team donated items for the silent and live auctions. Chris Warnek from the Dallas Lab has served as our Fundraiser Captain and hosted a great time. This team t-shirt was signed by many of the children we have seen in the clinic and went for $100 in live auction.

Here is Anamaria Blejan from Wisconsin Dells Sunglass Hut posing with her new purchase, Oakley Jupiters from our silent auction. Proudly between our fundraising page and the auction we have raised $. If you would like to help please visit our page to donate http://onesight.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&eventID=502&teamID=5009 and help us reach our $10,000 goal.

Day 9: Hometown Day

2010-02-25T11:13:00.001-08:00

Today was Hometown T-shirt Day!

Carson from Kelowna, BC sporting his 2010 Olympic Winter Games t-shirt.

Tonya and Debbie, both from the Cincinnati area wearing their BearCat gear.

Texas Lingo: yankee, typically a derogatory term for an outsider. "Stupid yankee, can't even drive straight."

The last step in the clinic process is making the children's glasses in our mobile lab. We are very fortunate to have several Core Team members who are extremely experienced in the lab and are willing to train those of us who have little to no experience there.

Here Angie from Houston Lens Crafters is pulling lenses for each kids new prescription.

The lenses and frames are inventoried then the optical center is marked and finally we add what is called a block, a small plastic handle to the top of the lens so the machines can hold it without damaging it. From Left: Jody Fiest, Columbus Lab, Donna Zimmerman, Cincinnati Lab, Carson Maxted, Kelowna Pearle Vision.

Susan Weldon and Juanita from the Cincinnati Lab here on Seemore tracing frames, cutting lenses and putting together complete glasses.

Malisa Sacllia from Savannah Lens Crafters and Tiffany Knapp from Myrtle Beach Sunglass Hut are checking prescription, cleaning and casing up the finished product.

Day 8: Week 2

2010-02-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

Texas lingo: mosey, to walk with little purpose. "Let's mosey around the mall this afternoon."

The final step for the children who visit our clinic is frame selection.

Here Billy is measuring this young lady's pupillary distance or PD. This is the distance from the bridge of your nose to the center f your pupil. We use this measurement to put the optical center of your lenses in the best place for your eyes.

We have a great selection of frames, names Persol and Ray Ban. Pictured is Tonya helping some of the kids pick out their new pair of glasses.

It's so much fun to see the kids faces when they find the right pair.

We made a map of where the whole team is from and hung it in the pre-lab room.

Today Sukmeet had a heart warming experience we would like to share. While working at the auto-refractor she met a young lady named Kaylen. She was wearing a pair of glasses but they two years old as her mother has been out of work. Kaylen prescription is -19.50 and -14.50 -2.50 x 005 meaning she can't see the end of her nose without her glasses. These are the children we are so proud to help and truly touch us.

Wild Weekend

2010-02-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

We had a free weekend to enjoy our time as a team or visit local friends an family and attractions. A group of our amazing lab techs started our week by getting 200 glasses made to get us caught up in the lab before Monday's clinic.

Pictured upper left: Chris Warnek, Dallas Lab, Paul, Steve Kimbley, Dallas LC Roving Lab Manager, Scott Lawrence OneSight Clinic Manager, Pascagoula Mississippi.

Veronica Coiner, Norfolk Virginia, Lenscrafters General Manager pictured at Rancho del Viejo our late night dinner stop Saturday night. Insanely large portions for laughably low prices.

On Sunday the group broke up, part going to the Houston Space Center, pictured here, an the other part headed to ...

Galvaston! It was a clouding day but warm for our northern team members.

As always the day ended with great food, Jody Feist, Cincinnati Lab Trainer, pictured here enjoying greek food on her way back from the space center.

When the Galvaston group arrived back those who hung around the hotel shared a meal at Chili's. Top Left: Lisa Barbour, Greg Martin, Scott Lawrence, Anameria Blejan, Billy Thomas, Tiffany Knapp. Top Right: Amanda Krohn, Jane Walters, Paul Craven, Malisa Sicilia, Tonya Hudson.

Texas Lingo: high tail it, move quickly. "Let's high tail it out of here."

Day 5: TGIF

2010-02-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

Texas lingo of the day: a mess of, a group or unit of mass. "We're giving out a mess of glasses in these two weeks at clinic."

A great big thanks goes out to all our volunteer doctors, without their hard work our clinics could not be successful. We have 16 wonderful doctors working very hard to help this children get the best comprehensive eye care available.

Pictured above: the slit lamp has the ability to look at all the parts of the eye. In some cases we dilate the children's eyes to get an even better look. Our doctors are looking for things like injury, and cataracts.
As many as ten doctors are checking prescriptions at any one time. We estimate that more than 95% of the students we see here in Houston's 5th ward.
Left: Dr. Singh, Houston Lead Clinic Doctor, Dexter Jones, Houston Clinic Doctor Coordinator

OneSight in the Media. Check out more media links for our first week of clinic:

Houston Chronical Link:

http://www.chron.com/news/photogallery/Vision_Van_rolls_into_Houston.html#20486597

News Video:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid29266405001?bclid=0&bctid=67035125001

ABC 13 News Video:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7283758

Day 4: Aloha!!

2010-02-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

Texas lingo for the day, off the ranch, meaning slightly crazy, ex: You are off the ranch with that idea.

Our attire for clinic is normally our OneSight clinic shirts, red with a Houston logo on back but one day each week of clinic we have a fun day. Today was Hawaiian shirt day. Above is a picture of our team at breakfast in their Hawaiian shirts; Top left, Sheila Neal Moore - Target Dallas TX, Paul Craven - LensCrafters North Portland MN, Billy Thomas - LensCrafters Detroit MI, and Debbie Hailey - Talent Management Mason OH.

Pictured above is Lakshmi Gopiram, LensCrafters Los Angelas CA, working on the Auto Refractor machine.

This is the third step in the clinic process is what we call pre-test, this includes auto refraction and tonometry. Auto Refractor estimates prescription by measuring the way light bounces in the eye to give our doctors a starting point for their exam. Tonometry measures the pressure of the eye which if it is too high can indicate conditions like glaucoma.

Pictured above working on the Tonometry machine are Malisa Sicilia, Sears Savannah GA, and Lisa Barbour LensCrafters Denver CO.

We had a very special visitor today, Sheila Jackson Lee, US Congresswoman for the 18th district of Texas. During her visit she spoke about President Obama's Health care proposals and presented OneSight with a Congressional award. Pictured above are Sheila Jackson Lee and Scott Lawrence - OneSight (our team Leader).

Our truly fulfilling story of the day comes from a young girl, Jasmene. She came through the clinic wearing a -1.00 sphere in both eyes. The auto refractor read her left eye as needing a -15.25 correction, not believing his eyes, Carson Maxted - Pearle Kelowna BC re-tested. The re-test gave similar correction results. Unfortunately, Jasmene was very scared throughout the process and left before we could get her final written prescription. However there is a happy ending to this story, because of the wonderful partnership we have with the local doctors here in Houston, she will be seen again by them and receive the prescription. We all are so excited to be part of such an amazing little girl and helping her by giving the gift of sight.

Day 3: Team in Action

2010-02-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

We had an amazing day, seeing almost 400 kids. It was exciting to see how appreciative the children were for the care they were receiving and the excitement they shared with us as they picked out their brand new frames.

To check out the local news story on the clinic visit http://www.myfoxhouston.com/

Here is step two in our clinic setup; after registration children have their color and depth perseption checked. This pre-screening step helps our doctors catch some rare vision problems. Pictured here are two OneSight core team members, left to right Sukhmeet Garha - Learning and Development Mason OH and Sheila Neal Moore - Target Dallas TX.

Your Texas lingo for the day is, coke. After discussion amongst the team we have decided that the terminology is regional. In the west it's pop, the east it's soda and in Texas it's coke.

A huge win for the team today was completing a very high prescription for a kid today. Before the addition to the OneSight family of EyeVan the new mobile lab a prescription of +5.50 -6.00, +5.75 -8.00 would have been sent out for special order and may have taken several weeks to get back to the student. EyeVan's high tech lab didn't missed a beat and had the glasses ready in no time. Sabrina will receive her stylish Oakley frames in the next few days. The picture above is Oakley frame she picked and will be receiving with her new prescription.

Day 2: First Clinic Day

2010-02-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

This was one of the best first clinic days we've experienced. We had the privilege of seeing 300 kids today who all received free eye exams and those in need got to pick out frames for their brand new glasses.

Our bit of Texas lingo we learned today was shoot, meaning line or queue. Ex: Follow the shoot to the next station.

To give you an idea of the clinic setup we would like to walk you through our clinic process a few stations at a time.
The kids first stop is registration. We are so blessed by the amazing City of Houston staff that are running registration and many other parts of the clinic. Each child receive paper to track them through the process so we can document each step and make the best recommendations for their eye health.

Each day we'll share more stations with you.

We want to leave you with a heart warming story from our day. At the tonometry station, where you get the puff of air in your eye at the eye doctors office. We had a young girl named Jayla, she was so afraid of this station that everytime she got to the head of the shoot, she would let two or three other kids in front of her. When Jayla was left as the last kid in line the team realized her fear and took her by the hand, after two quick puffs she was off with a smile.

Day 1: Travel

2010-02-15T18:40:00.000-08:00

Day one started with all of us traveling from different parts of North America. All of us are headed back to our hotel from dinner and we have about three quarters of the team together. The Cincinnati team could not make it today because of bad weather so we are looking forward to meeting them tomorrow.

We have already learned our first bit of Texas lingo, Fixin: planning to do something, ex; We're fixin to go to Chili's for drinks.

We are very fortunate to have Dawn Yager - OneSight and her vision van "Seemore" with us for week one. As we break in our brand new vision van "EyeVan" we will have both vans to use first week of clinic. Thank you Dawn for making the trip to come help us. To see our brand new van visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/OneSightOrg

Stay tuned for the next two weeks to see our clinic in action and learn more about our amazing Onesight core team.

Welcome!

2009-12-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

Hello!

If you are interested in virtual participation in our OneSight Clinic to Houston TX, you have landed on the right blog! Our team of 24 volunteers from North America will spend two weeks in the Houston area providing new eyewear to thousands of Texan students who could not otherwise afford to see the world clearly.

Each day, right here on this very page, we will be posting highlights from our vision care clinic including stories of our recipients, the team experiences, and a little about Houston itself. We land in Houston on Sunday, February 14th and will be posting messages and photographs through Friday, February 26th. Be sure to log on every day so you don't miss any of the excitement!

Here's a little background about OneSight and our Global Clinics: OneSight is a family of charitable programs dedicated to improving vision through outreach, research and education. Sponsored by Luxottica Group, OneSight programs have helped more than 7 million people over its 20-year history.

Each year, OneSight conducts two-week global clinics in developing countries where our doctors and trained volunteers provide free eye exams and recycled eyewear to thousands of people in need. Till date we have run about 155 clinics in 31 different developing countries. This year, we have planned 20 clinics in developing countries around the world. For a complete list of clinic locations, visit www.onesight.org.

We would like to thank all of you in advance for your financial and emotional support for OneSight and our clinic team, as well as a big thank you to our local volunteers and coordinators who will make this clinic possible. Thanks for visiting our blog and we hope you are as excited about the clinic as we are!