Because  kids need to see well to read well, Bess the Book Bus  and VSP Vision Care have teamed up through  the VSP Sight for Students® program. As the newest Sight for Students community partner, Frances  provides gift certificates for free comprehensive eye exams and glasses to qualified  children.  As part of the partnership between Transitions Optical, VSP and Bess the Book Bus, and because the average child receives three times the annual UV exposure than an adult,  all glasses provided through Frances are outfitted with Transitions lenses. Transitions lenses automatically darken to help protect the children’s eyes from harmful UV radiation, which is a tremendous benefit considering that less than 30 percent of children wear sunglasses regularly.

Frances’ goal is to travel through 44 states and distribute more than 200,000 books this year. That’s right, this isn’t just a weekend gig! In fact, in the past few weeks Frances has distributed more than 5,000 books to more than 2,000 children , including joining Eyenstein in Tuscaloosa to help children affected by the tornadoes. She is in Minnesota this week and will be in Wisconsin next week. Keep up to date on Bess the Book Bus’ adventures on Frances’ blog  and check out some pictures from recent events. 

We’re also excited to share a new milestone! VSP’s Sight for Students^® program, which provides low income and uninsured children with free eyecare, has helped more than 600,000 children receive an eye exam and glasses to correct vision- and health-related issues. More on this announcement.

Today, more than 50 pre-screened students from Azalea Elementary located in Pinellas County are the first to benefit from the new clinic. The evaluation process for students grades K-5 included initial screenings by Prevent Blindness Florida. Students who failed the screenings will be given comprehensive examinations in the clinic, staffed by VSP eye doctors. For students requiring prescription lenses, VSP and Transitions Optical will provide the students with complimentary eyewear fitted with Transitions® lenses.

A student of Azalea Elementary School was the first patient and is wearing the first glasses made on board the clinic in the finishing lab!

This partnership marks another milestone in furthering the efforts of the VSP Mobile Eyes® Program. What started as an extension of relief efforts following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the program features two mobile eyecare clinics, each with two comprehensive exam rooms and full eyeglass dispensaries, which respond to disasters and assist people in need in communities throughout the U.S. The new clinic will be the third clinic in the fleet and has the unique feature of a finishing lab featuring full-service lens finishing equipment, donated by Santinelli International, providing patients with glasses on-site.

Rob Lynch, CEO of VSP Global and Dave Cole, Managing Director of Transitions Optical, unveil the new mobile clinic at Transitions headquarters in Pinellas Park, FL.

Here’s what VSP Global’s CEO Rob Lynch said about today’s events:

“Transitions and VSP both have a strong commitment to supporting the community and helping people see better. By leveraging the strength of our two organizations, and in partnership with our 26,000 private practice eye doctors, we will be able to extend our reach even further to help more people in need!”

In 1972, Dr. Marvin Poston was the first African American named "Optometrist of the Year" by the American Optometric Association, the highest professional award from the AOA.

VSP is known for quality service – whether providing eyecare to underprivileged through our number of charitable programs, ensuring patients have access to high-quality vision services or providing doctors with the tools they need to maintain successful private practices. This dedication to service can be directly attributed to the core philosophies of VSP’s founders, one of whom was Dr. Marvin R. Poston.

In 1935, Dr. Poston was the first African American student admitted to the study of optometry at University of California, Berkeley. It took another 23 years for the second African American student to follow in his footsteps and graduate from the Berkeley School of Optometry. Dr. Poston later became the first African American licensed to practice optometry on the West Coast.

Nearly 55 years ago, Dr. Poston, along with several of his fellow optometrists, formed California Vision Services, now known as VSP Vision Care. The company originally was the first to offer a prepaid, vision benefit that provided high quality, cost-effective eyecare. VSP has since grown to become the largest not-for-profit visions benefits provider in the nation, covering 1 in 6 Americans.

Dr. Poston’s optometry practice flourished for four decades in Oakland and Danville, California but his reach extended far beyond those who visited his offices. Befitting one of the founders of a company that prides itself on community support, Dr. Poston began his own tradition of community outreach by establishing vision-screening programs for under-served children and adults. The Children’s Vision Center of the East Bay, the West Oakland Health Group and the East Bay Skill Center are just a few of the organizations that benefited from his efforts.

Dr. Poston received numerous honors during his career, including the Optometric Man of the Year award by the Alameda Contra Costa Optometric Society and Optometrist of the Year by the California Optometric Association and the American Optometric Association. He was also appointed to three terms on the California State Board of Optometry by governors Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and Ronald Reagan. In each of these areas, Dr. Poston was the first African American ever to be honored.

“He was a man of great integrity,” says Norm Jacoby, O.D., a former colleague from Encino, California. “He was very soft-spoken and intelligent, and you listened when he spoke. Marvin was conscious of what new graduates needed when getting started in private practice and that they needed all the help they could get.”

This awareness led Dr. Poston to start Optometric Planning Service (OPS), a company that gave young optometric students access to the resources necessary to start their businesses properly. OPS evolved into Professional Health Management & Planning Services, Inc., which provided services for professionals new to a variety of healthcare fields.

After more than 40 years in optometry, Dr. Poston and his wife, Arlene, relocated to Calistoga, California to open Poston Crest Vineyard. As with his practice, Dr. Poston received recognition for his success as a vintner. In 2004, Wine Business Monthly featured him in an article about diversity in the industry titled “The Changing Face of the American Wine Industry.”

Dr. Poston is remembered as a generous individual and contributor to the success of VSP. “Dr. Poston’s passion for people and their vision is still alive in VSP’s corporate mission, values and the efforts of every doctor,” said Gary Brooks, VSP Vision Care’s president. “Through outreach programs such as VSP Mobile Eyes^® and Sight for Students^®, we continue his legacy of commitment to the community.”

After a satisfying life filled with professional and personal accomplishments, Dr. Poston died July 18, 2002 in St. Helena, California. He was 87 years old.

Green Dot New York students, Lori, and Liz.

SeeZar at Green Dot New York in the Bronx.

Dr. Kisling is a VSP network optometrist practicing in Ft. Collins, CO.

Is your preschooler or kindergartner ready for their first eye exam? There are critical times to have eye check ups, and this is when you as a parent typically start to have concerns that your child can see his or her best. The onset of the school year brings in many young children to the eye doctor’s office for the first time. Some of them are very anxious because their experience with doctors has normally been associated with sickness and pain.

You can help alleviate your child’s anxiety about going to see the optometrist with six easy steps:

1. Explain this is a fun type of doctor’s office without shots. Advise them they will need to answer a few questions as best as they can and there are no right or wrong answers. Assure them if they do need glasses they will get to help pick out colors and shapes they like. If they need vision correction, give them some ownership of the process. If it is determined they need glasses, make positive statements of how much they will enjoy seeing the leaves on the trees and their favorite movies.
2. Prepare them for eye drops. You can refer to them as tickle drops that make their eyes tickle for a few seconds. Yes, they do sting briefly, but when I tell children they will probably tickle a few seconds that is what usually happens. Right after drops are put in the eye I start asking children questions to distract them for the first minute or so. If they are thinking about something and answering questions they don’t feel the drops. You can do the same thing by barraging them with questions that have happy answers. Talk to them about how their eyes will be blurry up close for a few hours and they will need to wear some funny looking sunglasses when they are outside until the drops wear off.
3. Explain they will need to read very small letters on a wall. You can practice at home by making a homemade eye chart with print size you can read easily from across the room taped to the refrigerator. Have them cover one eye at a time and practice. If they don’t know their letters, yet pick three objects they know and do the same thing.
4. Tell your child the optometrist will shine some bright lights in their eye for a short period of time like a flashlight feels when shined at their face.
5. Explain they may need to sit very still for a few minutes while an eye computer checks their eyes. Play a game of sitting still and staring straight ahead for 1 minute with a reward when they do.
6. Promise a reward after the eye exam if they do good. Doing something they enjoy right after a vision exam will give a positive association with going to see the eye doctor. 

A happy patient!

Making your child’s first visit to the optometrist a fun, positive experience can help them maintain a lifetime of healthy eyesight. I find they are my easiest patients: normally cheerful and they rarely complain. Last but not least, schedule their eye exam at a time when they are at their best, not at the end of the day or around nap time. Help make it a fun new adventure. And if your child is under one year old, the InfantSEE® program will provide a one-time, comprehensive eye assessment offering early detection of potential eye and vision problems at no cost regardless of income. To learn more about InfantSEE® call toll-free (888) 396-EYES (3937) or visit www.infantsee.org.

David H. Kisling, O.D., A.B.D.A.
www.drkisling.com
www.twitter.com/dhkisling
Harmony Eyecare
Fort Collins, CO. 80525

Jessica G. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team.

I was seven. Holding the book inches from the end of my nose, I was reading the newest Encyclopedia Brown. My parents witnessed my peculiar reading posture, and took me to an optometrist, where we found it was time for vision correction. All through elementary school, I wore glasses (bad ones), and survived the kind of taunts you would expect: “four eyes,” “nerd,” “dork.”

Jessica G. in the 4th Grade.

Then I reached high school. As a textbook sullen teen, I decided that I was “soooo over” glasses and begged my parents for contact lenses. They weren’t sure I was ready to take the leap and wanted me to wait a couple more years before graduating to contacts. In a self-defeating act of defiance, I just stopped wearing my glasses. No glasses meant no blackboard in class, which meant that my attention span dropped as my grades followed suit. I began having headaches and eye strain from constantly squinting. But, hey, I thought I looked good.

So when a recently-released joint study by VSP and Prevent Blindness America showed that one in five teenagers have difficulty seeing in class, I believed it. Kids who can’t see what’s on the blackboard in class are at a serious disadvantage, and may be perceived to have learning disabilities or other behavioral problems, when it’s simply an issue of correcting their vision. These kids also often suffer from headaches and other symptoms of vision impairment.

Sight for Students Eyewear

I eventually saw the light, and found a pair of glasses that actually suited me. With the range of great frames out there, this was a lot easier than it was when I was seven. Being able to absorb all aspects of class, both visually and aurally, made me a better student, and my grades recovered.

Increasing numbers of states are beginning to require an optometrist’s exam prior to entering public school, so hopefully the numbers released in the study will be on the upswing, with more kids getting eyecare and eyewear before hitting the classroom. With all of the challenges children encounter during their school years, removing the barrier of vision impairments can give them the extra edge they need to be successful.