On Monday, June 12th, the Thorold Lions Club along with several Lions from other local clubs and some young volunteers packed approximately 30,000 pairs of eyeglasses that were collected by many Lions clubs in district A-2.

The World Health Organization estimates 120 million people worldwide are visually impaired. The majority of these people can have their vision issues corrected by eyeglasses, contact lenses or refractive surgery. Providing eyeglasses gives children and adults opportunities for education, employment and a better quality of life.

Your used eyeglasses go on an amazing journey which will hopefully end up being dispensed, free of charge, to children and adults in need of glasses.

Thank you to everyone who donates their used eyeglasses to the Lions. Thanks to all Thorold Lions, other Lions and volunteers who dedicated an evening to carefully sorting and packing the thousands of donated eyeglasses, lenses and hearing aids (yes, we collect those too!). Thanks as well to Garden City Growers for letting us use their facilities as a staging area.

We had the largest crew we’ve ever had to help with eyeglasses packing. If it were just the Thorold Lions doing the work, we would have needed another evening to get it all done. Many hands make light work! This is a project of district A-2, so we welcome any and all Lions and their friends and families to come help next time around!