Vision Screening Comes to Keys Gate Charter School

Last week, Keys Gate Charter School partnered with the Lions Club International Foundation’s Sight for Kids program and Miami Lighthouse for the Blind’s Florida Heiken Children’s Vision Program to test every student for vision problems.

The initial screening was done by Lions Club volunteers using a Welch Allyn Spot Vision Screener. If problems were detected the student was then sent for a complete eye exam in the Mobile Screening unit. There a glasses prescription was prepared to be sent to the students’ parents along with information on free eyeglasses for low-income students.

This van is part of the Florida Heiken program which operates both with the Lions Clubs screeners and independently around the state.

With almost 3000 students Keys Gate is the largest school to be screened by the Sight for Kids South Florida program according to Jane Colona, the project administrator. She said, “Our district (Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and St Lucie counties) received a grant from Johnson and Johnson Vision in 2020 to begin the program with additional grants each year. We were the first district to receive the J & J grant in the United States.” She continued, “This is the largest screening we’ve ever done. We’ve done some Senior Highs with around 1,300 students, but this is the first time we’ve done an entire K through 12 school. Yesterday we found almost 30 percent of the 2nd and 3rd grade students had vision issues.”

We then asked Colona about the Lions Club members who were doing the initial screening. She told us, “The Spot Vision Screener is a simple

device to use. We bring our volunteers to an event and it’s on the job training. They can begin screening almost immediately. We are looking for more Lions to volunteer and more schools to participate in the program.”

Representatives of Lions Club International, Johnson and Johnson Vision, and Miami Lighthouse for the Blind were on hand for the event.

Past Lions Clubs International President Justice Brian Stevenson traveled from Calgary, Canada. He told an assembly of the 12th grade students, “You may not know, but 98 years ago in 1925, Hellen Keller asked the Lions Club to become Knights of the Blind and since that time we have been putting glasses on children and adults around the world. More recently, 20 years ago, we partnered with Johnson and Johnson Vision to provide healthy sight to children around the globe. As of this year we have screened over 48 million children through our program Sight For Kids.”

He continued, “We’ve established a goal in the 4-county area of screening 20,000 children this year.”

More information on Sight For Kids is available on the website www.lionsclubs.org.

For no cost eye exams and glasses for Pre-K through 12the grade students and/or parents can apply at www.floridaheiken.org .