Life of an Eyeglass  

1. You decide to donate a used pair of eyeglasses that have been sitting in a drawer collecting dust.

2. You wash the eyeglasses in preparation for shipping. (Please see “Used Eyeglass Care to the right.”)

3. You send your eyeglasses (as many as you’d like) to The Luke Commission, 83 N Main St., Cedarville, OH 45314.

4. In Ohio, your eyeglasses are read by our eyeglass reader machine.

5. Your pair of eyeglasses is placed in a plastic bag with a bar-coded label stating the eyeglasses’ prescription

6. Put in a box, your labeled eyeglasses is carried to the airport in an army-sized duffel bag stuffed full of other donated eyeglasses…

7. The duffel bag carrying your eyeglasses arrives in Africa.

8. Your eyeglasses are removed from the duffel bag and box, scanned into a lap-top computer program, and assigned an inventory number.

9. Your eyeglasses are arranged in its number’s slot on the mobile eyeglasses’ inventory cart.

10. The mobile eyeglasses inventory cart, containing your eyeglasses, is loaded onto our mobile clinic trailer and driven to the African bush.

11. The eyeglasses portion of our mobile clinic is set up with the lap-top computer, auto refractor, generator, and the eyeglasses cart containing your eyeglasses.

12. Hundreds of visually-impaired Africans line up to be treated. Each African has his eyes “read” by the auto refractor. Our computer matches his eyes to – you guessed it – your eyeglasses.

13. The inventory number is printed and your eyeglasses are removed from the eyeglasses’ cart.

14. Your eyeglasses are placed on a grateful African.

15. Suddenly, the African can see the trees on the hill, a needle to sew, words to read, the face of his child.

16. Your eyeglasses leave our mobile clinic on the face of an African giving new life and hope.

     

The Luke Commission - 83 N Main St., Cedarville, OH 45314