Posts Tagged ‘children’

Fore Healthy Sight!

Jill N. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team

Jill N. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team

 

“Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose.”  ~Woodrow Wilson

 
For the second year in a row VSP has the opportunity to participate with Transitions Optical at the 2010 Transitions Championship for Healthy Sight as part of the “Live Your Vision Pavillion” and “Healthy Sight Village.” VSP will be one of a few optical industry partners on hand providing information, education, and hands-on experiences that will include sports-vision demonstrations, golf clinics, eyewear fashion shows and health and wellness screenings.

 VSP will be included in a new “Competitive Advantage” area developed by Transitions, VSP and Nike Golf, where attendees will have the opportunity to learn how vision impacts athletic performance (I don’t know about you, but I definitely blame my eyesight, among other things, for my golf performance…), how general fitness impacts their golf swing (so you’re NOT supposed to match the number of beers to the number of strokes?), and how the latest technological innovations like performance eyewear and golf apparel can help them golf and look their best (who cares how good you are if you don’t LOOK good doing it?).

Prior to the tournament, VSP will also partner with Transitions and Prevent Blindness Florida to provide three days of charitable outreach to local Tampa children and  adults in need. After the outreach, the VSP mobile clinic will be showcased during the tournament to help educate attendees on the importance of eye health and giving back to your community.

As part of the fun leading up to the tournament, VSP conducted a sweepstakes and one lucky winner was selected to attend the tournament with three friends. Stay tuned to see the tournament through his eyes as he creates and posts a video diary of his experience.

Check out a video from last year’s event with SeeZar! YouTube Preview Image

From the Road: VSP Mobile Eyes in Monterey County, CA

Today we have a guest post from Maggie P. Magallón, a health service advisor from the Monterey County Office of Education – a recent partner of the VSP Mobile Eyes program.

For the Monterey County Office of Education’s first VSP Mobile Eyes event we were able to provide services to over 55 children and youth in need — in the future we’ll shoot for over 100!

Niki and Kim with patients and MRT Vicki Aston

VSP Mobile Clinics Operations Manager, Niki M., with a patient in his shades after his eyes were dilated.

During the three day outreach event, the clinic visited three school districts in Monterey County, including Greenfield Union, Sta. Rita Union and Salinas City Union. The young patients entered the clinic with excitement and gratitude, especially after they had the opportunity to select their frames from popular brands like Disney & Coach!

Patient with Kim and Isabel

One of the students picking out his frames with VSP Mobile Clinic Operations Managers, Kim R., and Monterey County Migrant Program partner, Isabel.

It was a pleasure partnering with the team at VSP.  Kim R., Niki M., and Vicki A. are a great team to work with, and I want to give a big  thank you to our local VSP optometrists – Dr. Sylvia Lee, Dr. Brett Fredericks, Dr. William Kadell, and Dr. Catherine Winters – who enthusiasticly volunteered their time to provide eye exams to the kids.

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VSP Volunteer, Vicki A., Dr. William Kadell, Kim R. and Niki M.

Now that the students who needed glasses will receive them, I feel they will definitely show an improvement in their language arts and math achievement this year as they can see with much more clarity and precision!

We look forward to VSP Mobile Eyes visiting our area again.  What a great service VSP offers to the community!!! 

Wow! Your head is so big! Volunteering on the VSP Mobile Clinic

One of our partners Dan McLean, at Transitions Optical shares a story about working with kids while volunteering on VSP’s mobile clinic.

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A surprise visitor during free day with VSP Vision Care!

Last week in San Francisco, Exploratorium guests were invited to peer into the science of seeing with VSP Vision Care. During an Exploratorium Free Wednesday on December 2nd, kids and families had the opportunity to tour SeeZar, one of the VSP Mobile Eyes® clinics, Ask the VSP eye doctor, Jim Winnick, all sorts of questions (which animal has a brain that weighs less then its eye?), spin a prize wheel, and participate in intriguing, eyes-on activities inspired by the Exploratorium’s Seeing exhibit collection. As if all of this wasn’t enough fun for the day, we had one more surprise in store for everyone, a visit by San Francisco’s Kyle Rose, member of the Team Type 1 professional cycling team!

Guests had the opportunity to ask questions about diabetes, cycling and receive autographs and pictures with the local star during his last appearance stateside as he prepared to move to Paris, France, where he will be racing for the 2010 season.

Kyle Rose and Jill N.

Kyle interacted with the kids…”you get to ride bikes for a job??” “Do you ride bikes with Lance Armstrong?” “I have a purple bike…but it’s broke.” “I bet you need really good eyes to see where you are going.” “Have you crashed before?” (OK, this last question was actually me. And yes, he just finished healing from a gnarly crash where he was clipped by another rider, flipped over his handlebars into a ditch and broke multiple ribs!) Read more »

Exploration Through the Eyes of Students

Jeff H. is a channel partner manager with Eyefinity®/OfficeMate®. He shares his recent volunteer experience during an educational event at the San Francisco Exploratorium with our mobile clinic, SeeZar.

Eye See with VSP at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CAI haven’t been to the Exploratorium since my own grade school field trip.  As I stepped into the spacious, interactive museum in San Francisco during the recent Eye See: Free Day with VSP Vision Care, I was reminded what a unique educational landmark the Exploratorium is – an exhibit hall filled will hands-on experiments that are not just educational, but entertaining (for kids and adults)! Read more »

Mahalo from VSP & the Hawaii Optometric Association

Rob T. is a member of VSP's Sales Team

Rob T. is a member of VSP's Sales Team

Rob T. in  VSP’s Hawaii Sales Office shares some recent events VSP participated in with the Hawaii Optometric Association.

If you were out in Hawaii recently, the Children’s Discovery Center in Honolulu was the place to be as VSP partnered with the Hawaii Optometric Association (HOA) to take part in two great community events that brought the importance of vision awareness and fun together.

On September 27, 2009, VSP and HOA hosted “Be Wise To Your Eyes” day. In its second year, the event emphasized the importance of an annual eye exam which parents took to heart after their children participated in free vision screenings by our volunteering doctors. Read more »

Helping out ForSight in York, PA

Jill N. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team.

Jill N. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team.

VSP network Dr. Dennis Delp of Shiloh Eye Care Center in York, PA, has been volunteering his time once a week for the last 20 years with ForSight Vision Center, a not-for-profit serving its community by providing quality, specialized services and opportunities designed to prevent, prepare for and manage loss of vision.

Dr. Delp volunteered with us during our fifth community event providing exams with the clinic back in November of 2007 and we were happy to partner with him again last month when he called to ask for our support of during this important inaugural event with ForSight. Listen to Dr. Delp as he speaks to the results of the event and the impact it had on the community.

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An east coast transplant helps in her new community.

Green Dot New York students, Lori, and Liz.

Green Dot New York students, Lori, and Liz.

 

 

Liz C. is a mobile response team member and is an Account Manger working within the VSP Field Sales department in our New Jersey regional office. She shares her recent first experience working on board SeeZar at the Green Dot Bronx event in New York.

 

 While I’ve been a part of the Mobile Response Team since it first started about two years ago, I just recently had the opportunity to attend my first event at the Green Dot Public School in NY this week. Having recently moved to the east coast about 8 months ago it was nice to participate in a local event! I was so excited that I couldn’t fall sleep until midnight the night before even though I had to wake up at 5am. I felt a kid waiting to go to Disneyland. After almost a year since I saw SeeZar last, I smiled big as I saw him drive up and we headed off to the GreenDot school located in the Bronx area.  

Record Breaking First Event in York, PA

WakefieldDavid Wakefield is a VSP Friends and Family driver and husband of VSP employee, Shelly Wakefield. He shares his experience during his first event with the Mobile Eyes team in York, PA.

I came into this event with a blend of curiosity and apprehension, not really sure what to expect.  The team was fired up and putting together their game plan and I followed along hoping to be useful and not in the way.  We were scheduled to see 102 people today which would be a new record for a one day event.  I found that everyone, from the VSP team to the doctors and rotary volunteers, were all motivated to work together to overcome the unknowns to make this event a success.

We set up and were ready to begin right on schedule.  The patients began to trickle in and we were blessed with a slow but steady warm up.  We were wondering if the bad weather would be keeping the people away, but we soon found that the need to see outweighed the desire to stay dry and the long lines began to form.  I was tasked with operating the auto-refractor and had the opportunity to experience the personalities of every patient who came in.  The mix of emotions was astounding but everyone had one thing in common, they wanted to be able to see. Read more »

Specs for Success at Animo Justice and Animo Ralph Bunche

The clinic outside of the Animo Ralph Bunche and Animo Justice campus.

The clinic outside of the Animo Ralph Bunche and Animo Justice campus.

Wednesday was my first day working as a tech on our mobile clinic, and it put me to the test! On our day of a series of events in partnership with Green Dot Public Schools, we visited Animo Ralph Bunche and Animo Justice. These schools share the same campus, so we were able to help students from both schools from one location.

These students were amazing! The results of the Green Dot program are apparent after talking to the kids that we saw. They’d just finished taking their PSAT test, and were articulate, polite, and eager to get their eyes examined. Looking back on myself at that age, I could have taken a cue or two from their manners and poise.

All of the students loved the selection of eyewear on the clinic, and were totally excited about the great brands available to them. Who wouldn’t be glad to wear glasses from Fendi, Coach, or Sean John?

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