Lions Club offering free vision screenings to preschoolers

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The Lions have checked more than 1,000 kids — that’s 2,000 eyes — with thousands more to go.

Charles City preschool children have the opportunity over the next few weeks to get a free vision test, compliments of the Charles City Lions Club and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

According to Lions Club member Jerry Meyer, who was administering screenings Monday at the preschool at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Charles City, it’s important to detect eye problems at a young age.

“They miss so much learning when they can’t see a map, or can’t see a picture,” Meyer said. “It’s like looking at a tree with glasses on, and realizing it has individual leaves, versus a green blur.”

It’s all part of “Iowa Kidsight,” which is a vision-screening project where Lions Club Volunteers organize and conduct vision-screening sessions locally. It is a joint project of the Lions Clubs of Iowa and the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. The screenings are open to all children between the ages of six months and four years.

The volunteers use a special camera which takes an image of the child’s eyes and detects eye problems in children who are too young to verbally communicate possible vision problems. The results are examined by a specialist at the children’s hospital.

If a possible vision problem is detected, a letter of referral and a list of area eye specialists is sent to the parents in two-to-four weeks.

The tests can show signs of nearsightedness or farsightedness, misaligned eyes, cataracts or eye diseases such as cancer, Meyer said.

Tests are free of charge, and they qualify for the eye test that all students are required to have done before they enter grade school.

“This satisfies the requirement for the state of Iowa,” Meyer said. He said the Lions Club will be doing the testing for about four weeks. All the preschool teachers in town have gotten permission slips sent to them, to go home with the kids to the parents.

“We can’t take a picture without a permission slip,” Meyer said. “They have to sign it and bring it back.”

Meyer said if a parent hasn’t gotten one for some reason, and they’d like to do it, they should get one from the teacher.

“If there are some that come in later, we’ll catch those, too,” he said. “We’ll also be doing retakes down the road.”

Lions Club members have been trained to use the special digital camera, which the club purchased a few years ago for $10,000, through the Iowa KidSight program at the University of Iowa.

Meyer, along with fellow Lions Club members Charlie Perry, Russ Swartz and Doug Sinclair, are all trained to use the camera and conduct the screenings. The camera takes pictures of a child’s eyes, then those pictures are sent in electronically to be evaluated.

“We’ll each do about 50 or 60 kids, about 200 preschool kids total each year.” Meyer said. “Typically, we will find about 12-15 kids total who have a possible eye problem.”

When that happens, the parents are notified that their child has been recommended to see an eye doctor. The Lions Club members who administer the tests never know which particular child is recommended for more testing. They just get a summary of the number of kids who were recommended.

Lions clubs have worked on preventing blindness and other vision and sight-saving initiatives since the club was founded in 1917, according to the international organization.