POULTNEY, Vt. (AP) – Students from two third-grade classes at the town elementary school will be collecting used eyeglasses as well as candy when they go trick or treating this week.
The classes enrolled in a national campaign to collect used eyeglasses that will then be sent to people in developing countries who might otherwise never have the chance to see clearly.
“They don’t have access to these things; to them it’s a godsend,” said Michelle Powers, a mother of a Poultney third-grader who is helping to coordinate Sight Night.
The program is being run with the help of the Lions Club and the national eyeglass retailer LensCrafters.
Almost anyone with imperfect sight should be in a position to help as the 27 third-graders go knocking on doors with special Sight Night necklaces over their costumes.
“People just need to look in their junk drawers, open their glove boxes; if you wear glasses you probably have an old pair,” Powers said.
Aside from the Halloween collection, Sight Night volunteers have placed seven drop boxes at local businesses around Poultney where people can donate eyeglasses. The boxes will be in place until Nov. 7.
The students will accept any sort of glasses as long as the frames and lenses are intact. Before being distributed in El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and other countries, the glasses will be cleaned, repaired, and classified according to prescription by LensCrafters volunteers.
For Powers, whose brother once received several pairs of free prescription glasses from the Lions Club, it’s easy to see the benefits of the program – both for the recipients and the young collectors.
“It’s a great way to help somebody without spending money,” she said. “It helps kids realize there’s always a little something you can do to help people out.”
Since the program began in 1988, volunteers have helped nearly 3 million people improve their vision, according to Sight Night’s Web site.
AP-ES-10-27-03 0745EST
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