Eyeglass program passes 1 million mark

    The Sterling Lions Club’s eyeglass program recently reached a big milestone: shipping its one millionth pair of eyeglasses from Sterling.
    The program began in 2001 by then Lion President Myron Graybill. The Colorado Lions Used Eyeglass Program is a state service project headquartered in Sterling and administered by the Sterling Lions Club. Glasses are collected from all over the state of Colorado, including Holyoke, and parts of Wyoming.
    From 2001 through June 30, 2018, the program shipped 951,604 pair of glasses. As of Jan. 31 another 13,760 had been sent out. The latest shipment of 46,920 pair to Feed The Children puts the program at 1,012,285 pair shipped to various charities, church groups and individuals worldwide.
    The program works in association with Logan Industries, whose clients remove glasses from cases, sort and check for broken glasses. Then the glasses are taken to the Sterling Correctional Facility where selected inmates wash the glasses, read the prescriptions using a lensometer, bag them and place a label with the prescription on the bag. The inmates usually process 1,500 pair per week.
    The glasses are then placed in boxes and the Lions pick them up and take them to Wells Fargo Bank to sort them based on their prescription. The glasses are sorted by single vision plus or minus, multivision plus or minus, or readers, and placed in french fry boxes from Wendy’s to be stored until needed by a group, charity or individual. Sunglasses are sorted between non-prescription and prescription.
    When an order is received, the boxes are shipped by UPS, hand delivered to the requesting group or in the case of Feed The Children, taken to Mead Lumber Co. to be placed on pallets, shrink wrapped for shipping and stored until picked up by their truck.

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