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1710 Leer Drive, Suite A, Elkhart | 574-327-2357 | serenityhme.com Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. New Location Now Open in Granger!
May 2023
15,000 Circulation
Vol. 36, No. 3
Elko Edition Reachi Reaching ing Elkhart, Kosciusko, Noble And LaGrange Counties
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Lions Club mission recycles THOUSANDS of eyeglasses in Mexico 7H[W DQG 3KRWRV %\ .(,7+ .1(33 (GLWRU You’ve likely seen the Lions Club’s buckets around town, whether at the grocery store, optometrist or other retail location. The white, five-gallon pails invite people to deposit their unneeded prescription eyeglasses for recycling. But what happens to those glasses once they are donated to the cause? Marty Juel, a member of the Elkhart Lions Club and leader of Lions District 25-G’s eyeglass missions project, explained the process that eventually delivers thousands of used eyeglasses from northern Indiana to rural communities in Mexico for reuse by people who otherwise might not have access to vision correction. “District 25-G includes all the Lions Clubs in Elkhart, Kosciusko, St. Joseph, Marshall, Miami, Fulton and Wabash counties,” said Juel. “We collect the glasses in buckets, boxes, at funeral homes, optometrist offices — from lots of places. The glasses come to my house where we presort them to get rid of broken ones and others that we obviously aren’t going to use but do have value to us (via metal recycling).” The glasses are then taken to Fairview Grange in Goshen where they are cleaned and sanitized using an ultrasonic machine the Lions purchased several years ago that takes most of the difficult manual labor out of this part of the process. Volunteers then dry the glasses before placing them
in boxes to be sent to one of three individuals who have a lensometer, a machine that reads each lens. The glasses are then individually bagged with a sticker noting the prescription, then placed into boxes with similar classifications, of which there are approximately 75. Larger boxes containing approximately 400 pairs of glasses are then shipped to Texas, from which they are trucked into Mexico, specifically to the city hosting the year’s mission. In total, approximately 14,500 pairs are sent annually. The boxes are waiting for the 20-plus Lions members when they arrive at the end of September. Each Lion pays a majority of their own costs to be part of the mission. “Years ago, when I did this with a different group, we took a school bus to the airport in Chicago and each checked a box of glasses as our second bag,” said Juel. “Our group has never done that. It’s a yearlong process. The glasses we’re cleaning today are for our 2024 mission. We’re always working ahead.” Not only does the group take its own optometrist on the mission, they also are met by Mexican optometrists. They use autorefractors to measure eyes and determine prescriptions. Juel said the odds of providing a perfectly matched prescription are very low. “However, we’re going to get very close,” he said. “You would not know the difference. We will get very close. There are very few people who we can’t Continued on page 3
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