Toms River Students Bring Medical Care To Needy Kids

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A trio of Toms River North students spent their Presidents Day weekend in the Dominican Republic, volunteering at medical camps that bring care to impoverished areas.

Vidhi Jain and Ved Jain, the founder of Share A Smile, and their friend Arjun Sobti traveled to the Caribbean country to help out with distributing eyeglasses and other aspects of the camps.

Share A Smile was founded by the Jains about four years ago with the mission to spread more smiles around the world by helping people who lack access to basic medical care, including vision care. They organize fundraisers and the funds generated are used for camps organized in the developing parts of the world. Share A Smile has previously done four such camps in India.

The Lions Club of New Jersey, along with multiple Lions Clubs in the Dominican Republic worked with Share A Smile to set up these camps, with the common goals of providing vision and diabetes awareness.

After nearly six months of planning, three camps were organized in three rural areas of the Dominican Republic from Feb. 16 to Feb. 18 that helped more than 650 people of all ages were seen for their vision checks and diabetes checks.

More than 400 pairs of eyeglasses were distributed to those in need at no charge. The eyeglasses were donated by the Lions Clubs of New Jersey through their recycling center .

"There were young kids who had significant difficulties in reading in their classrooms," Vidhi said. "When they were given proper eyeglasses, they jumped in joy saying, 'Wow, I can read now.' There were elderly who kept on getting unsteady and falling due to poor vision. They left with such bright smiles because of good vision and proper eyeglasses."

"This was such an humbling experience, we are so lucky here in the USA, I am glad I could help a few kids and people," Ved said.

Through Share A Smile foundation, they hope to do more of these camps for the benefit of under privileged in the world.

Photos provided by the Jain family