Eye glass clinic draws about 100 to Lyndonville for free glasses

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 14 April 2024 at 12:53 pm

Photos by Tom Rivers

LYNDONVILLE – People check out some of the frames for glasses available at an eye glass clinic Saturday at the White Birch Golf Course in Lyndonville.

The Lyndonville Lions Club organized the event for the third straight year. Lions Club members from Medina, Lewiston, Kenmore, Tonawanda, Grand Island and Niagara Falls assisted in the event.

People were able to get a vision screening, fitted for glasses and a glaucoma screening.

Several optometrists and ophthalmologists were on hand to assist with the clinic.

Joe Shiah, a member of the Kenmore Lions Club, checks how a pair of glasses fits one of the people at the clinic. Shiah is a key leader in the Lions Club pop-up eye clinics in Western New York.

The frames were collected by Lions Club in Western New York, with some also given by the Lakes Plains Eye Center in Medina.

The lenses will all be new. The glasses are expected to be ready in about three weeks with pickup at the White Birch.

There were 80 people at the clinic in the first hour of the five-hour event, with people coming from Lyndonville, Albion, Gasport, Appleton, Middleport, Waterport, Kent, Kendall, Lockport, Barker. Newfane and Medina.

The Lyndonville Lions Club recently purchased a iCare 200 tonometry machine with support from the Lyndonville Area Foundation. That handheld machine measures intraocular pressure.

The tonometry machine will allow for glaucoma screenings. Glaucoma is one of the most common forms of preventable blindness in the United States.