Dinai Yelverton, social entrepreneur and Founding Board Member of the Experiences That Matter Foundation, has announced their second installation of the 2020 Perfect Vision Campaign. The Campaign was created to encourage youth to develop and manifest vision for their lives, literally and figuratively. Launched the summer of 2020, the first tour supported over 100 families at five different locations, making stops in the Auburn-Gresham, Austin, Bronzeville, Englewood, and Little Village neighborhoods. This year’s tour will, once again, provide free mobile vision care services by licensed, professional optometrists along with prescription eyewear for youth ages 3-18, in pre-selected neighborhoods around Chicagoland.
Preselected community stops include: By The Hand (Englewood) – 9/28 from 4 p.m.–7:30 p.m.; SOS Children’s Villages of Illinois (Roosevelt Square) – 9/29 from 4 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.; Lawndale Christian Community Church (Lawndale) – 9/30 from 4 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.; Patti Leach Youth Center (Lansing, IL) – 10/1 from 12 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. For more information on the 2020 Perfect Vision Campaign, and to sign up children who qualify to receive free vision care and eyewear at one of the tour stops, please visit www.perfectvisioncampaign.com.
Vision exams will take place at each stop on a VSP Vision Eyes of Hope mobile clinic. Each clinic is outfitted with an eye exam room and portable exam equipment for volunteer eye doctors to provide comprehensive eye exams, an eyewear dispensary stocked with popular frames, and an optical finishing lab. Patients will receive their glasses the same day if they can be made on-board; otherwise, they’ll be delivered within a few weeks.
“We are so excited to be partnering with VSP Vision again this year in a much bigger way. Our goal has always been to address the issues of affordability and accessibility. So, the fact that kids get to walk away with glasses in hand is huge,” said Dinai Yelverton.
Vision care is important because, according to Prevent Blindness America, 1 in 4 school-aged children and 1 in every 17 pre-school aged children have vision problems that may affect their academic and social success. Additionally, reports from The Center for Health in Schools show that about 60% of students classified as problem learners have some sort of undetected visual problem. Many vision issues can be treated or corrected if caught early enough. Since 2015, Hispanic children have accounted for the largest number of vision impairment cases in the United States (37.7%) among ethnic groups and projected to maintain that position through 2060 (43.6%) with African American children ranked third (statistics: JAMA Network).
