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OLD SPECS ARE A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES
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Photo: The Comet Series, Hitchin. |
John Ritchie is a man who doesn't mind making a spectacle of himself. He has been collecting people's old spectacles for years and has just sent off another batch of more than 300 to Vision Aid Overseas. The glasses go on to prisons where the inmates check them on specialist equipment and identify the optical prescription for each lens. They are then sent to Third World countries for distribution to the poor and needy. John inherited the task when he became chairman of Letchworth Garden City Rotary Club's international service committee. He has carried on even though he is no longer chairman. "I collect on a quarterly basis from all the opticians in Letchworth and local voluntary organisations also send them to the club. About 25 per cent have to be discarded because of damage or discolouration but the rest are quite useable. We help about 1,000 visually handicapped people a year in this way," he said. September 20, 2000 |
| UPDATE....
From "The Comet", February 22, 2001: Don't throw away your unwanted or out-of-date spectacles - they are much in demand. Since 1995, the Rotary Club of Letchworth Garden City has been rounding up unwanted glasses in the area, on behalf of Vision Aid Overseas - hundreds have seen their way from this area to Africa and other places to help improve the quality of life in these deprived areas of the world. Amazingly, the glasses are collected and sent to an open prison in Kent where they are tested for strength, etc... by inmates, before they wing their way to their final destination. Please take your superfluous spectacles to any local optician and in return Rotarians will collect them. A real "visionary" idea, I suggest, to help people who are less fortunate than ourselves. Terry Gray |
