As you may know, World Sight Day is coming on October 8^th, so here are some quick facts about World Sight Day. Lions Club International and many blindness prevention organizations joined together on October 8^th, 1998 to begin the first World Sight Day. Larger organizations such as WHO (World Health Organization) and IAPB (International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness) commit to organizing and coordinating events for the day with the Lions Club and other non-government organizations. VISION 2020 is a global initiative created by the IAPB that as of 2010 coordinates the major events on the day. World Sight Day was not recognized as any form of holiday until October 14^th, 2010 after it was integrated with VISION 2020. 285 million people worldwide suffer from low vision or blindness, 39 million of these people are completely blind, while 246 million of them have moderate or severe visual impairment. 90% of blind people live in low-income countries, but 80% of visual impairment is preventable or at least avoidable. Despite these, the number of people blind from infections or accidents has decreased in the last 20 years, as with the rest of those who were visually impaired who did not previously have glasses.

World Sight Day was created to raise awareness of the necessity of glasses around the world, and how they affect our learning abilities and daily lives. There are currently two local options at our disposal to make a difference. Anyone can donate old, unused pairs of prescription glasses in the APC or room 508, which will go to the Lions Club and then be sent to a larger world organization that takes care of sending these around the world. The other option is to take a picture of anything that you want, preferably beautiful things that emphasize sight, and tweet the photo with the hashtag #givesight. When you send pictures with that hashtag, TOMS Eyewear donates to a fund to stop unnecessary blindness around the world.

The Human and Social Services class is mainly responsible for really bringing this subject to the school. The class focuses on world issues, and in this case split the class into four groups each of which explored a nonprofit agency that helps with one of these issues. It was through this that they had discovered TOMS eyewear, an organization that fights world blindness similar to TOMS shoes, but instead of donating shoes they donate to a fund to stop this issue. It was this desire to make a difference that drove them to help in organizing a school connection to TOMS eyewear and the Lions Club and support World Sight Day.