MAKE SOMEONE SMILE BY GIVING THEM THE GIFT OF VISION
It’s Holidays, the season of giving. While we’re all busy with shopping lists and choosing gifts for family and loved ones, there are others in our neighborhood, in our community, in our planet, who won’t be having a very merry December. Let’s all pledge to pay it forward, and spend a portion of our shopping funds to light up their Christmas with the gift of eyesight.
We have compiled a list of 10 charitable causes where your Holiday donations and gifts will change somebody’s perception of the world, and the kindness of people in it.
1. Help Raise a Seeing-Eye Dog
Guiding Eyes For The Blind is a New York-based non-profit that provides guide dogs to people with vision loss. They connect exceptional dogs with needy individuals for a secure and independent lifestyle. Besides monetary help, you can also get involved by raising a puppy to be a successful guide dog or hosting a litter-and-mom in your home for up to 5 weeks. There are all sorts of rewarding ways to help at Guiding Eyes For The Blind if you love dogs! For more information, visit: www.guidingeyes.org/volunteer/
2. Buy A Pair, Give A Pair
Warby Parker, a premier American online retailer of prescription glasses and sunglasses has a policy of charity attached to every eyewear they sell. Whenever, you buy a pair of glasses from them, Warby Parker makes an equal donation to a non-profit that is working in developing countries to give eye-exams, sell subsidized glasses and make eye care available in poor communities.
For more information, visit: www.warbyparker.com/buy-a-pair-give-a-pair.
3. Find Veterans With Vision Loss
There are an estimated 130,000 blinded veterans in the United States today. Each year another 6,000 veterans become blind due to age-related accidents or diseases like macular degeneration or combat related injuries. Half of these veterans don’t know they’re eligible for special benefits and services. If you’d like to help the Blinded Veteran’s Association to locate and assist blinded veterans by distributing educational literature in your community, please let them know. They will send you as many brochures as you can pass out. For more information, visit: bva.org
4. Give a Blind Cat The Option of Life
Blind Cat Rescue in St. Paul’s, NC, needs funds to carry on their blessed work of giving blind cats a fresh lease of life. At their cage-free, no kill shelter, they are presently caring for 88 cats whose age, medical condition, temperament or other special needs makes them even more precious. Your donation, no matter how small, during these Holidays to the Blind Cat Rescue will mean another cat is not put down because it’s not a pretty household accessory. For more information, visit: blindcatrescue.com
5. Help The Visually Impaired To Help Themselves
Blindskills is a unique self-help organization through which people who are blind or visually impaired offer support to each other as they seek to overcome this serious sensory challenge. Your donation will help Blindskills build bridges of understanding by sharing information and resources with people of all ages who are blind or visually impaired, their families, and their communities. For more information, visit: blindskills.com.
6. Support Awareness Of Usher Syndrome
Usher syndrome is the most common genetic cause of combined deafness and blindness. More than 400,000 people are affected by this disorder worldwide, and currently there is no cure. With your gift of a donation, you have the power to change that. The Usher Syndrome Coalition is working to raise awareness and accelerate research, while providing information and support to impacted individuals. For more information, visit: www.usher-syndrome.org
7. Help Fight Childhood Blindness
The Vision of Children Foundation is dedicated to the eradication of hereditary childhood blindness and vision disorders. The foundation serves as an informational resource, provides a family support network, sponsors research programs and offers a computer monitor program for visually-impaired students. Your donation will help fund research and find cures.
For more information, visit: www.visionofchildren.org/donate.
8. Gift Vision to Those Living Below Poverty Level
Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity (VOSH) provides vision care services to those below poverty level and without access to eye care. VOSH programs supply eyeglasses, treat eye disease and refer or perform vision surgery to more than 100,000 people around the world each year.
For information, visit: vosh.org
9. Help Optometrists Take Treatment Abroad
Optometry Giving Sight is a charity that sends optometrists to underdeveloped countries, to provide eye exams and eyewear to poverty-stricken people, so they can get jobs and help themselves to become contributing members of society. In 2016 Optometry Giving Sight has funded 43 projects in 26 countries, and these projects are transforming lives of tens of thousands of individuals.
For more information, visit: www.givingsight.com
10. Join The Battle Against Choroideremia
Choroideremia is a rare inherited disorder that causes progressive vision loss, ultimately leading to complete blindness.
The Choroideremia Research Foundation raises funds in support of scientific research to treat and cure choroideremia, educate people affected by the disease and raise public awareness.
For more information, visit: curechm.org