Lions Club to test vision of all Manchester K-12 students

Photo of Lions Club member using the spot camera. Photo courtesy of the Manchester Lions Club.

Starting today, the Manchester Lions Club will be performing vision screenings of all of the K-12 students in the Manchester Community Schools. They plan to test all of the high school students this afternoon. They will test Middle School students on Friday, May 6th, and while the date is yet to be scheduled, will test the elementary students in June, possibly in conjunction with the Kids Against Hunger food packaging day.

As part of Project KidSight, the Manchester Lions Club purchased two Spot Cameras that they can hold up at a distance from the person being screened to get a reading which they can use to tell the person whether or not they need to be referred to an optometrist or ophthalmologist. Lions Club members can in less than 1 second accurately identify potential vision problems in children as young as age one without causing stress to the child.

Barry Allen of the Lions Club stated, that before purchasing the two cameras, they had promised four times more screenings and have found that they are doing 10 times more!

The goal of Project KidSight is to identify and help children who have vision disorders that hinder their ability to succeed in school and develop normally.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.