On Feb. 16, 13 members of the Sterling Lions Club gathered at Wells Fargo Bank to prepare the Colorado Used Eyeglass Program’s latest shipment to Feed The Children non-profit headquartered in Oklahoma City. The Used Eyeglass Committee of the Sterling Lions Club taped and moved 216 boxes of eyeglasses from storage to Mead Lumber Co. to build six pallets of 36 boxes each for shipment to Feed the Children who will pick up the pallets with one of their trucks that passes by Sterling on I-76. The pallets contained 52,880 pair of refurbished eyeglasses that have had the prescriptions read and been sorted by prescription. From Oklahoma City the glasses will be sent on missions to assist the impoverished worldwide.
The Colorado Used Eyeglass Program was started by Myron and Carol Graybill in 2001. Myron was club president at that time. The program was headed by Lion Bob Slonecker for about eight years and has been led by Lion Dave Conley for the past five years. The program is a state of Colorado Lions program headquartered in Sterling. Used eyeglasses are collected statewide and sent to Sterling for processing. The collected eyeglasses are sorted by club members and clients of Logan Industries. Cleaning, reading of the prescriptions and bagging are done by inmates at the Sterling Correctional Facility. Each week members of the club deliver more glasses to the prison and pick up the completed glasses. Approximately 1,500 pair are processed weekly.
This shipment of used eyeglasses puts our total at 942,455 pair since the inception of the program. A project this large requires the help of many partners. Locally the Sterling Lions Club would like to thank the following: Eastern Colorado Service For The Developmentally Disabled, Inc. who operate Logan Industries, The Colorado Department of Corrections, our storage partners — Wells Fargo Bank and Ertle Brothers Storage, our shipping partners — Mead Lumber Co. and Industrial Welding & Supply, who pick up and deliver eyeglasses on their trips to Denver and Jim Edwards who keeps our computers functioning. We would especially like to thank all the Lions statewide that collect the used eyeglasses in their communities.
