Windsor Lions Give Vision Screener to School System

At a meeting of the Windsor Board of Education on May 17th, the Windsor Lions Club donated a significant diagnostic tool for eye care to the Windsor school system. In line with its mission to help and improve the quality of sight for all students the club donated a Welch Allyn Spot Vision Screener. The Spot Vision Screener has been utilized by many Lions clubs in their respective towns. The instruments are loaned by the Lions district organizations to the local clubs to handle the preK and daycare facilities in their towns. The Windsor school nurses have mainly been using the familiar Snelling Eye Chart for testing nearsightedness. Working with the nurses, the Lions became aware that a more accurate and expanded range of testing was needed on a more consistent basis. This vision screener will give Windsor schools nurses the ability to diagnose many more eye conditions, expand the number of children screened, speed up the process and eliminate the subjective nature of the eye charts. The Spot Screener is about the size of a large SLR camera. It has a large lens that will face the student who is seated about 3 ft away. The student needs only to look at the screen and in one second an analysis is done and immediately sent to a local wireless printer. The result is an accurate report on both eyes for nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, unequal refractive power, eye misalignment and unequal pupil size. The Lions are working with the Head of Nursing as well as the Director of Student Services to get this program started for the September 2016 school year. For over twenty years the Lions have also provided the subsequent free exams by an optometrist, plus necessary frames and lenses to any Windsor student in financial need. The club also offers eye exams and glasses to Windsor residents of any age who are in financial need. In the photo are Windsor Lions President Debbie Orth, Lion Lou Morando, Laurie O'Brien-Nursing Supervisor for the Windsor School System, Lion Bill Haberman and Steve Carvalho-Director of Pupil & Special Education Services. The Lions thank the people of Windsor for their longstanding support of its eye care and many other charitable activities. The Windsor Lions meet on second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at the Union Street Tavern in downtown Windsor. To attend a meeting or for more information about the club please contact Jim Daniels (860-209-9489 or jamesadanielscpa@gmail.com.