Our partners

From the beginning, VisionSpring has been our primary partner in the Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program. We’ve supported their social entrepreneurship model internationally, which makes it possible for low-income men and women to acquire and sell radically affordable eyeglasses, earn a living, and care for their families. In addition to providing vocational training, this model makes eyecare significantly more accessible in communities with few or no other options. Over 50% of VisionSpring’s customers are getting glasses for the very first time.

In 2015, we created Pupils Project, our program with a number of organizations and local government agencies, like the Department of Education in New York City and the Department of Health in Baltimore, that provides free vision screenings, eye exams, and glasses to schoolchildren. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, vision disability is the single most prevalent disabling condition among children in the U.S.; our Pupils Project model eliminates barriers to access by providing free prescription glasses and meeting children in their classrooms, where vision issues often first come to light. We also support a similar school-based model in Mexico, with the organization Ver Bien, that helps bring glasses to elementary public school students across the country.

(This is cool: As part of our work in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University is conducting a longitudinal study to better understand the correlation between the intervention of vision treatment and reading scores as well as the benefits of ensuring access to glasses for children in urban settings.)