Friday 04.23.10

On the final day of clinic we helped around 150 kids receive the gift of sight.
Our total count for the entire two weeks of
the Chicago clinic came to 3416 children!

Harry led us in our final cheer for the clinic.

What a great two weeks; helping great kids, making great friends and working on EyeVan!
The team slowly departed throughout the day to head back to our hometowns.
What an amazing experience! I hope everyone enjoyed travelling along with us and our journey in Chicago!
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Thursday 04.22.10

On Thursday, our last full day at the Chicago OneSight clinic we had a super busy day! We are very close to reaching our goal of helping 3500 kids in these two weeks!

There were a lot of great stories with great kids today.

Jessica met a young girl in the dilation room named Alexis. Alexis was sobbing as soon as she sat down in her chair telling her teachers and classmates that she was scared and didn't want to do the eyedrops. She asked to go first to get it over with but couldn't keep her eyes open and couldn't stop crying. Alexis had one of her best friends come over and talk to her and hold her hand, and together Alexis and her friend decided to go last instead. Alexis was able to go last in the eyedrop line when all the other kids had left the room and ended up laughing at how much the drops tickled. Later in the day Jessica met up with Alexis in the frame selection room and helped her pick out a cute pair of glasses.

Alexis and Jessica

We were also fortunate to help out a military school today!

Mary-Kay had said she'd never been called "ma'am" so much before, until this group was at the clinic.

Jess and a group of kids from the school

Caviniona was able to pose with the whole class.

Victor and Marcos were also able to get to meet a great group of kids who thanked them for all the work they have been doing on EyeVan during the clinic!

Thanks Marcos and Victor! You guys are amazing!

Scott was able to join us today on the last full day of clinic also!

Scott, Harry, Dawn, Bridgid and Naomi

Before our day ended we did some deep cleaning on the items used everyday that will be on their way to the next OneSight clinic in Detroit. We also took some pictures to remember our new friends by.
Click on pics to open in new window.

The group on EyeVan.

Tonight after clinic we all ate at Lou Malnati's downtown and had some deep dish pizza and pasta. After that we headed to the hotel to have our pinning ceremony.

During the ceremony everyone got to say some special words about the person they got to pin.

We also took time to get pictures of each brand.

LensCrafters


Sunglass Hut


Pearle Vision


Target and Sears Optical

Tomorrow will be the final day of Chicago clinic. There will be around 100+ kids, lots of goodbyes and flights home all over the country.

Wednesday 04.21.10

Today was a GREAT SUCCESS!!!

Although we've hit a few speed bumps this week, today we came back out on top!

We helped 427 kids today, which was our biggest day yet!

We caught up on the leftover jobs from previous days bright and early this morning!
(Thanks to our 5:30am troopers)

We got all the machines up and running smoothly all day long!

We also learned that the Lions Club awarded a grant to help buy new speicalty equipment to assist in our journey to help all children, including those with special needs at the Chicago Clinic.

All these great successes makes for some happy people!

Jackie, Dawn and Naomi

Jackie, Ellen and Chris

We had three cheerleaders today, which is also a great success!

Dawn, Melinda and Mary-Kay

We had some some great stories to go along with our successful day too!

We had a a girl with a -4.00 Rx and she never had glasses before, and we were able to dispense her glasses to her and her excitement was overwhelming to the whole team. Teresa was able to give this young girl the glasses and said that the girl could only cover her mouth and giggle once she had her new glasses on.

We had a young man named Shannon in the dilation room, and he spoke to Shannon from the clininc and told her "I'm scared, I'm really scared." The young man was reassured by Jessica and Shannon in the dilation room that he'd be great at it. Jessica was able to hold his hand while Shannon put the drops in his eyes. Shannon was able to squeeze Jessica's hand while he was receiving the drops. He was great at it and did both eyes very quickly and it was over before he knew it.

There was also a -14.00 Rx that was sent to EyeVan and the generator gave a warning that the lens could not be cut because it was out of parameter. Marcos, the EyeVan Production Lead gave a go-ahead on generating the lens even with the warning. The generator was having a great day and turned ot a perfect lens that was able to be put into a pair of glasses and will be put on to a childs face.

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Tuesday 04.20.10

Elvis is in the building! That's right, we started off day two of week 2 with Stan dressed as Elvis leading us in a pep cheer! What a trooper!!!

On this clinic day, we helped 396 kids and had a very long, but enjoyable day.

Mary-Kay from Aspen CO Sunglass Hut had this to say-

"I had 16 special needs students to start off the day with. No tears but I have 2 new boyfriends! Christoper & Ellias!" -Mary Kay

Working from 7:30am right until the last bell at 5:30pm. What a great day at the clinic. By the end of the day we were all tuckered out and ready for bed.

Monday 04.19.10

On Monday, our first day of week 2 at the Chicago clinic, we helped 386 kids.
Caviniona had some very insiriing kids come through her department which was the dilation room.

Caviniona had this to say...
"Today I met some cool kids. One lil guy name Anthony had surgery about a month ago b/c of seizures and was super excited to be able to get his glasses today. He wanted to do everything and was happy to do it and was polite! He was certainly the highlight of my day helping him made me realize how blessed I am."- Caviniona

Frame selection room.

Dr Sue in the exam room.

Dr Frank Valentino and his patient.

Today was a rough day in the lab where we made all those glasses. We had some tempermental machines that held us up for a long night, and left jobs for Tuesday. A lot of the team had to pull together to troubleshoot the edgers and their antics.

Sara and her vacuuming project on EyeVan.

The edgers acting up.


And the jobs they left behind...

It was a long day, but we made it through and had a great, insulting dinner at Ed Debevic's.
This restaurant is known for having costumed/themed waiters who insult you while they serve you. It was a fun time for all and a great way to wind down.

Here we are with our hats on and our waitress "The Rockette" in the background.

Harry playing Jenga with the hats.

"Kevlar", "Colonel Mustard", and the "Rockette" doing YMCA dance on the bar.

What a great way to begin the second week of clinic!

Weekend 04.17.10 & 04.18.10

The weekend is here. The kids are out of school so the team had two days off to see Chicago.
Many groups enjoyed the city by going to different events...

Anywhere from Wrigley Park to see the Cubs and the Astros play.

Chris, Ellen and Dawn

To Navy Pier and Michigan Avenue for shopping and sight-seeing...

clockwise from top left : Jess, Doug, luiza, Leslie, Chris, Mary-Kay

We also had some fine dining in Chicago!

Bridgid at Texas de Brazil

Jessica at BnB on State Street.

Some others visited the Science and Industry Museum, Millenium Park and "The Bean", and did the boat tours on the Chicago River.

It was a delightful weekend for all and a chance to catch up on sleep for some, and we're ready for week 2 of the Chicago Clinic!

Friday 04.16.10

On our last day of week one clinic we again helped nearly 400 kids.
A few of our core team were only here with us for the first week and we were sad to see them go, but we are so happy they came and helped out and volunteered their time for the week.

LtoR Leona, Mike, Bridgid, Jamie, Josh, Emily and Dave

We had our daily cheer today by Sara and Jessica

Click pictures below to open in new window

Friday night was a free night for the group, and we all met up for Harry's party at BnB on State street, then later in the night went about our seperate ways to see the city.

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