The 2021-22 school year has come to a close. In the wake of the pandemic, helping kids get the glasses they need to succeed has never been more important, or more challenging. During our first full year back from COVID school shutdowns, Vision To Learn provided over 250,000 kids with a vision screening, over 83,000 with eye exams, and over 74,000 with glasses.
As I look back on our accomplishments during this year, I’m so proud of the Vision To Learn staff across the nation, and grateful to the many supporters who made this year possible. A couple of major milestones rise to the top:
LA Clippers, LA Unified Project Complete – Largest of its kind ever!
Vision To Learn returned this year to LA Unified schools to complete our contract with the district, in total providing 60,688 students with an eye exam, and glasses for 48,585! The work was funded by the very generous support of the LA Clippers Foundation, and LA Unified itself. Vision To Learn’s ten LA County mobile vision clinics visited 738 campuses across the school district. This project is the nation’s largest school-based effort providing children in low-income communities with free exams and eyeglasses and proves that our model, bringing glasses to kids where they are almost every day – their neighborhood school – is truly scalable.
Ten Years Later – 300,000 Students Provided Glasses
On May 23, 2022, Vision To Learn provided our 300,000th student with a pair of glasses. On that day, 27 VTL mobile clinics visited schools across the country – from Kalama Intermediate School in Maui, HI to Elizabeth Elementary in Charlotte, NC. Our founder Austin Beutner is fond of saying, “Every day we help at least one child get glasses is a good day,” but these days we are back to helping hundreds of students get glasses every day.
When Austin and Virginia started this journey ten years ago, none of us fully understood the impact something as simple as a pair of glasses would have on a child who needed them but did not have them. And, we had no idea how many kids we would go on to help. But our path for the next ten years is quite clear – to make sure every child in the country has the glasses they need to succeed in school and in life.
Thank You For Your Support!
I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who encouraged and supported Vision To Learn and hope that you will join us as we work to help more kids than ever in the next school year, and for years to come.
Sincerely,
Ann Hollister, President
Vision To Learn
