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Lions Club helps people statewide with eye problems

This document was published online on Friday, December 26, 2008

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Since 2001 more than 300 people living with diabetes in northwest Wyoming have been served through the Lions Club’s Diabetes Eye Care Project.

In 2008 alone 40 people with diabetes received an eye care voucher.

“We help many people with eyeglasses and eye exams,” club member Bob Hooper says. “We also help with cataract surgery.”

“Ten years ago 95 percent of the people we helped were kids,” club member Mick Barrus adds.

But since the state started the Kid Care program, the club’s focus has shifted and now nearly all of the people helped are adults and the elderly, many of whom have diabetes.

People are selected based on need and often are referred by optometrists, the Department of Family Services, Crisis Intervention Services or the Hope House.

Those selected are given a voucher that’s accepted by Cody optometrists who provide the club with discounted eye exams. In addition, the Northern Wyoming Surgical Center offers the club discounts for cataract surgery.

“It keeps our costs down and allows us to help more people,” Hooper said.

Funding for the program comes from the Lions Club’s annual Turkey Day event.

The club also helps sponsor the Lions Camp on Casper Mountain which provides independence training for blind adults and children, and the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute in Colorado which provides eye treatment for people across Wyoming and Colorado.

“That’s the network we have available to us,” Barrus said. “We have a way to get people taken care of even if we can’t help locally.”

For more information contact Dian True, diabetes education coordinator at Billings Clinic Cody, 527-1947.

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