Donations in Action
Each year, donations to Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) enable us to fund projects globally that provide immediate eyecare to those in need today, and expand optometry so vision care is available for years to come.
FUELING A MOVEMENT
Every dollar raised during the World Sight Day Challenge goes to work for the mission. OGS is a lean, efficient organization, which means that funds raised support everything that makes the work possible — from the grants that reach patients on the ground, to the infrastructure that ensures those grants are awarded wisely and managed well. When you give to the Challenge, you’re doing much more than funding a line item. You’re fueling a movement that turns resources into real-world impact.
That work takes many forms. Some grants build the infrastructure that makes long-term care possible — optometry schools, mobile clinics, vision centers in communities where none existed before. Others train the practitioners who will still be serving those communities long after a single grant cycle ends. Still others go directly to patients: comprehensive eye exams, prescription glasses, and the kind of immediate intervention that changes a life on the spot. What they share is a commitment to sustainability—to leaving something behind that lasts.
This fall, as practices across North America fundraise, compete, and give, every contribution is adding to that pool. A silent auction in Toronto. A bake sale in Kansas City. A single patient rounding up at checkout in Los Angeles. It all becomes something real, in a community somewhere in the world that is waiting for exactly this. That’s what the World Sight Day Challenge is for. And that’s what your participation makes possible.
In addition to helping people in developing areas around the world, we also recognize and address needs right here in North America:
Montréal, Canada: Université de Montréal École d’optométrie
In a long-term care centre on the outskirts of Montréal, elderly residents with limited mobility and limited access to specialists are getting something they’ve long gone without: comprehensive eye care, right where they live.
Dr. Benoit Tousignant and his colleagues at the Université de Montréal’s École d’optométrie are equipping a mobile optometry teaching clinic at the Pavillon Alfred-Desrochers. Optometry graduates perform full eye exams and provide optical services on-site, under clinical supervision — developing their geriatric care skills while serving a community that would otherwise have to go without.
It’s a model that serves two purposes at once: care delivered today, and the expertise to deliver it tomorrow. And it ensures that an all-too-often-overlooked population is seen and can see.
California, USA: Healing California
In a single quarter, Healing California delivered comprehensive, no-cost vision care — complete eye exams and prescription glasses — to more than 500 people across five communities. Full care, fully funded, for people who face significant barriers to accessing it on their own.
Their approach is built around meeting people where they are. Mobile pop-up clinics in Blythe, Laguna Hills, and Fresno brought care directly to residents dealing with distance, cost, and lack of insurance. School district partnerships in La Mirada and Downey ensured that children’s vision problems were identified and corrected before they had a chance to affect learning.
Critical eye care. Five hundred people. Zero out-of-pocket costs. That’s what scale looks like when the right organization has the right support behind it.
Oregon, USA: Envision EyeCare for All
In rural Oregon, the barriers to primary eye care are geographic, systemic, and deeply entrenched. Envision EyeCare for All is working to dismantle them on every front simultaneously.
Through their Eyes on Equity project, Envision is delivering comprehensive eye exams and prescription glasses to underserved, rural, and transient populations via a dedicated mobile vision vehicle — while simultaneously advocating for the integration of optometry into Oregon’s broader healthcare infrastructure. In the current project period, that included meetings with four state senators, collaboration with the Oregon Optometric Physicians Association, and statewide recognition through Oregon Health Forward.
The work has also led to Dr. Rebecca Chown’s appointment to the American Optometric Association’s Pediatric Eye Health and Vision Access Committee and a gubernatorial appointment to Oregon’s Rural Health Coordinating Council — positions from which she is now helping shape pediatric vision priorities across the state. This is what sustained investment looks like. It’s care delivered today, along with a system rebuilt to deliver it long after the grant period ends.
Your support made all of this possible. The World Sight Day Challenge is the engine behind so much of our work. Thank you for keeping it running.