(Cushing, Okla.) Cushing Board of Realtors recently met for their monthly meeting where members heard from Lions Club Council Chair Tom Cummings.
Cummings, also well known for his photography, told local realtors about new “camera work” he and his fellow Lions are doing through Lions Kidsight USA.
Lions KidSight USA is a Lions Club community service program that provides “a simple, non-invasive and cost-free vision screening test performed on young children.” It requires no medication or preparation and is painless. Parental permission is required before performing the screening.
Cummings said it was while attending a Lions Club International meeting he became aware of a special camera designed to detect possible serious eye problems in young children.
At $7500 each for camera and printer, the cost is not inexpensive, but Cummings felt it was worth pursuing – especially because of the connection Lions Clubs have with *sight.
“We have been trying to establish this program for over a year and finally all the pieces are falling into place,” Cummings explained. “Our efforts first started with a $4400 grant from Enbridge Energy in Cushing. That got us going. We then partnered with the Moore Medical Center (destroyed in the 2013 tornado) in furnishing their new educational/safety room.”
Because of those efforts, five cameras are now available to travel the state for Lions Clubs to do screenings in schools and communities.
In March, Cushing Lions held their first screening at Small Miracles Daycare and completed a second round of testing this week.
With camera in hand, Cummings invited realtors to participate in a demonstration of how it’s used to detect possible eye problems such as Hyperopia (far sightedness), Myopia (near sightedness), Astigmatism (abnormal curvature of the cornea), Anisometropia (aka “lazy eye”), Anisocoria (pupil size deviations) and Strabismus (eyes not directed to an object simultaneously).
The camera is held approximately three feet away from the child who is then asked to look at the “birdies” seen in the lense. In just seconds, an image of the child’s eyes is produced with the measurements and a preliminary evaluation. The image of the eyes and measurements is then printed and given to the child to take home to their parents. The entire process takes approximately two minutes.
“It is only a screening,” Cummings reiterated. “If the results are out of the ‘normal’ range, parents are urged to take the child to a doctor for further evaluation.”
Cummings related a story of a child in another state whose screening led to a cancer diagnosis that may not have been discovered until much later.
“We want to go where the kids are,” Cummings said. “It is my goal to get every kid in Oklahoma screened.”
Click here to learn more about Lions Kidsight USA
Cushing Board of Realtors meet the second Wednesday of each month at Mi Casa in downtown Cushing.
* For years, Lions Clubs of Oklahoma have been known for vision programs of recycling used eyeglasses and helping those financially in need with visual exams or purchasing eyeglasses. They also have their own eye bank that recently moved into its new home where corneas are harvested for eye transplants.
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