PROJECT KIDSIGHT
The Lions and Eversight Connecticut
expand children’s vision screening
Eversight and the New Britain Lions Club have partnered to
orchestrate the largest eye screening program in the state.
Led by Eversight Connecticut Executive Director Ryan Cady
and Lions member Alan Daninhirsch, they have screened
more than 12,000 children in the past two years from the
New Britain school system as part of a national program
called Lions KidSight USA.
KidSight is an initiative to ensure children
receive vision screening and professional
follow-up care they may need to correct
vision problems. And the program
is gaining momentum. Lions Club
International recently awarded a $100,000
grant to the local Lions Club to purchase
additional vision screening equipment.
The Connecticut Lions plan to match the
grant dollar for dollar in an effort to reach
at least 45,000 children annually with the
additional machines. Eventually, they’d like
to sweep the entire state, screening 200,000
Connecticut children a year.
“The cooperation between Eversight
Connecticut and the local Lions organization
has really enabled us to accomplish
everything we’ve done,” Daninhirsch said.
“It has been a model program for the entire
state.”
For Cady and Daninhirsch, the emphasis behind the
program is simple: Sight for young children is crucial to
education. If you can’t see, you can’t read. And if you can’t
read, you can’t learn.
KidSight Connecticut “We really want to envelop the entire state and
make sure that all kids are screened,” Cady
By the numbers
6,000
New Britain school
children screened
each year by Eversight
Connecticut and the
Lions Club
$100,000
Grant from Lions Clubs
International to the
Connecticut Lions to
purchase vision
screening equipment
200,000
School children Eversight
and the Connecticut Lions
hope to screen across the
state on an annual basis
said. “Because anything we can do to help
make sure children are receiving the medical
attention for their eyesight is vital. This is
really making an impact in our communities
and in the lives of young children.”
The results from screenings across the New
Britain school system, which includes about
13 schools, solidified Cady’s and Daninhirsch’s
belief that the current state-mandated system
requiring school nurses to screen children
with the Snellen eye chart has its limits.
Children with detectable eye problems are
slipping through the cracks.
According to Daninhirsch, school nurses have
a five percent referral rate with the eye chart.
But when using the PediaVision Spot devices,
the referral rate for Eversight Connecticut
and the Lions jumps to 17 percent with a
95-96 percent accuracy rate. That difference
means that nearly 25,000 children between
kindergarten and the sixth grade are dealing
with undetected vision issues in Connecticut.
For most of the United States the program
with new equipment
is focused on children between the ages of
six months and six years. In New Britain,
though, Daninhirsch, who is an Eversight Connecticut
That’s a gap Cady, Daninhirsch, Eversight and the Lions are
Board Director, and Cady concentrated on kids between
striving to eliminate.
kindergarten and the sixth grade. Using hand-held
PediaVision Spot devices that generate results printed out
“As we’re beginning to go back and follow the children,
on-site, a team of three to five volunteers can work through
we’ll see kids with glasses,” Daninhirsch said. “They’ll say
500 children in a day.
to us, ‘I didn’t have these glasses before you screened me
Parents receive a letter advising them to make an
appointment with an optometrist or ophthalmologist if
their child’s results are flagged from the scan.
last year. And now I’m doing much better.’ That makes it all
worthwhile.”
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