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GREATEST PERSON
OF THE WEEK
HUFFINGTON
08.05.12
ers have cataracts and others yet
just need new eyeglasses—imaginably, the opportunity for a new
lease on sight is worth the wait.
It’s worth it in the eyes of Bob
Martin, too.
AN EARLY START
Ever since a 15-year-old Martin
visited South America with Amigo De Las Americas—a non-profit
that sends U.S. high school and
college students on trips to volunteer throughout the continent
—he’s worked to stay involved in
assisting locals who don’t have
access to decent healthcare or
optometry.
“Once it got into my blood I
couldn’t stop,” Martin said.
Now 52, he organizes Vision
Health’s yearly trips from his
hometown of New Lenox, Ill., and
translates for patients while on
location in South America.
“A lot of people we fit with
eyeglasses—it’s their first time,”
he says. “All of a sudden they can
see the mountains and sew again.
It allows them to either go back
to work or go to school and do
things of that sort that we often
take for granted.”
It’s not just the personal stories that are telling—the num-
bers show a demand for Vision
Health’s services. Martin says the
company provides 250 free surgeries each summer and has given
around 15,000 eye exams since
its first trip. He says that, though
there are some well-qualified optometrists in most of the areas,
there simply aren’t enough to ensure every person in need of eye
care gets help.
“The issue is that they usually only have one or two public
health doctors and they’re on
another side of the country,” he
says. “There are private doctors,
Martin
stayed in this
home on the
Muisne River
in Ecuador
during his
first trip with
Amigos de
las Americas
in 1976.