In 2019, the World Health organization reported that around 2.2 billion people have blindness or vision impairment of some kind. Not many people are aware of this and even fewer people actually decide to take action to help these people. At the age of 15, I chose to make an impact, not only in the family business, but also on a greater scale with a nonprofit organization with a vision to aid those with vision impairment.
On several occasions during the early summer of 2020, I remember my mother coming home with teary eyes and smeared makeup. She was distraught with the current state of her optometry business. Many patients weren’t leaving their homes due to the COVID restrictions at the time. This led to a lack of patients coming into the office for appointments and a decrease in office sales. As the CEO, my mother was tasked with the challenge of finding new employees during the pandemic, but it seemed to be almost impossible to find anyone qualified to fill the role. Many people were inexperienced and gave up on the job rather quickly.
Seeing my mother in that state was truly painful, so I decided to work at her office during the summer. In addition to handling administrative tasks around the office, I started directly interacting with patients. I had to learn quickly what was involved in checking the patient’s prescription and pre-testing patients. I also used my knowledge and long-time interest in accounting and financial modeling; I soon took over running the company’s spreadsheets with our balance statement of profits and loss. I was responsible for sourcing designer frames as well and keeping a track of the office’s inventory. Each week, I carefully tracked our business metrics and set goals for inventory, sales and expenses.
Amidst the struggles during the summer, I noticed areas that could use improvement. I was logging the patient statistics into the computer and watched as my coworker tossed some of the plastic contact lens blister packs in the regular trash can. The office didn’t have a recycling bin and this made me reflect on how environmentally unconscious society is as a whole. The office dealt with lots of plastics and trash yet there was no recycling method implemented. Also, many of the patients I talked to were unable to afford glasses due to being unemployed or furloughed; they were frequently unable to access eye care or buy eyewear due to the lack of appointments during lockdown. For weeks, I had these types of interactions, and after a while, the frustrations of our patients and environmentally unconscious practices began to get to me. I decided that I needed to do something about it–just working in the optometry business to help my mother wasn’t enough.
Therefore, I decided to start a nonprofit organization called VISION4U, with the goal of making eyewear accessible to all and recycling contact lens blister packs. I incorporated it as a 501(c)3, which took me many long nights of filling out IRS tax forms and State Regulation Forms. Next, I reached out to a network of local optometry offices. I asked them for donations of used eyeglasses and contact lens blister packs for our cause, and many agreed. Afterwards, I reached out to other organizations–Lion’s Club and Terracycle, and secured partnerships to help with recycling and distribution. Lion’s Club helped to get hundreds of repurposed glasses out to people in the community who needed them urgently, while Terracycle helped me recycle thousands of contact lens blister packs. VISION4U is going strong today by being more productive and keeping a good relationship with our partners. I’m currently planning to develop a mobile app to facilitate the process of recycling and distributing the glasses, while providing tips on eye health and proper care through workshops and our instagram page. I firmly believe that access to vision care is a basic human right; seeing well is a fundamental part of living well, and I can’t wait to expand my efforts in college and beyond! I hope to continue my work on my college campus and secure more partnerships to help expand the nonprofit’s outreach efforts.
Creating this nonprofit has allowed me to adopt a mindset that focuses on being more environmentally sustainable. In the summer, I will be starting a clothing brand and plan on choosing manufacturers that are environmentally conscious. Although it may be more expensive, it is definitely worth it to establish my brand as one with high quality and consciousness for the environment. Go support it in the summer! @da.ascension
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