By Debbie Adams
When you hear “Lions Club,” you probably think of “service” and “eyesight.” Lions Club
International was founded in 1917 and early on it made preventing blindness and preserving
sight its main goals. The organization provides eye care, eye examinations, and eyeglasses for
those who cannot afford them.
The Vinton Breakfast Lions Club members carry out that mission locally by conducting vision
screenings for all schools in the Vinton area and by volunteering at the Virginia Lions Eyeglass
Recycling Center in Roanoke. Kay Patrick of the Cave Spring Lions Club is the director of the
center.
director.
The recycling center collects used eyeglasses– regular glasses, bifocals, readers, computer
glasses, sunglasses, novelty glasses, and children’s glasses. Once they have been processed, the
glasses are shipped all over the United States and around the world to those in need, often in
partnership with medical, humanitarian, and missionary organizations.
A group from the Vinton club volunteers once each month donating a couple of hours each at the
center. On March 11, Sam Cundiff, Gary Myers, Chris McCarty, Gary Melchers, Joel Lytton,
John Dyer, and Bill Perrin donated their time. The Leo Club, which they sponsor for students at
William Byrd High School, also volunteers at the recycling center on the second Monday of each
month for two hours after school.
The Cave Spring Lions volunteer at the recycling center once each week; they also sponsor an
active Leo group– Star City.
No one affiliated with the Eyeglass Recycling Center is paid.
The Lions’ Eyeglass Recycling Center is located on Elm Avenue in Roanoke City. It is one of
just six in the world. The building is easy to recognize by the Lion statues in front.
It was built in 1972 and served as an Eye Bank until it merged with the E.G. Gill Sight
Foundation of Virginia. The building is now owned and supported by Lions District 24C. They
have repurposed the facility into the recycling center on the lower level. Meeting rooms upstairs
accommodate Lions Club meetings, and also house the Lions of Virginia office. Those rooms on
the upper level are also used by tax preparers to assist senior citizens completing their tax forms,
at no charge.
The recycling center receives almost daily shipments of used glasses, some from Lions Clubs
and other organizations; some from individuals.
Volunteers from other Lions Club, including the Cave Spring Lions, and those from Smith
Mountain Lake, Blacksburg, Forest, Tazewell, Christiansburg, Salem, Pearisburg, Martinsville,
Ferrum, and the Roanoke Valley Breakfast Club, along with the Leos, categorize the eyeglasses
into boxes depending upon whether they are judged usable or not. Those which can’t be recycled
are shipped to California, sold by the pound as scrap metal, glass, or plastics, with the proceeds
returning to the Lions. Glasses cases are also recycled for various projects by youth groups and
churches.
Once the eyeglasses are delivered to the recycling center, sometimes in large shipments of
thousands of glasses, sometimes one pair at a time through the postal service, the sorting process
begins. (Once they received a horse trailer full of glasses in boxes, which took over 29 hours to
sort.)
The next step is sterilizing the glasses in dishwashers. At one time, the eyeglasses were all
washed by hand.
Next, the glasses are moved to another room which is equipped with several instruments called
lensometers, which are used to read the prescription of the lenses. The prescription strength is
documented on clear plastic envelopes, which are ordered 60,000 at a time. Each volunteer who
expresses an interest is trained on using the lensometers.
Most Lions say they can read and record about 200 pairs of glasses in half a day – up to 300, if
working with a partner.
lenses.
Lion volunteers assemble the requested lenses and again box them up for shipping.
After that, the glasses await a call and a specific request from groups who will distribute them to
those in need.
Patrick says mission and medical groups, and sometimes individual churches, request a variety
of lenses, usually taking 800 to 1200 pair at a time with them as they travel to foreign countries,
in Africa, South and Central America, the Far East, the Middle East, and even Ukraine.
The Lions say Patrick “does everything that needs to be done,” takes phone calls, takes orders for
the eyeglasses, processes the orders, keeps up with finances (the only charge involved with the
glasses is shipping), keeps records and inventory, and schedules clubs and volunteers to help.
She says that generally mission or medical teams take some type of Spot Vision screening device
with them, similar to what the local Lions use for screening school children, which quickly
determines the prescription needed by each individual so they can be outfitted with their new,
and mostly, first-time pair of glasses. Spot Vision cameras in essence take digital photographs of
the eye from about a meter away and can assess an individual’s vision in as little as five seconds.
The center has a recycling mailbox at their front door on Elm Avenue for donations of glasses.
Recycling boxes are also scattered throughout the valley. The Vinton Breakfast Lions have boxes
in Kroger (Vinton and Bonsack), the Bonsack Walmart, Pinnacle Bank, Ace Hardware, William
Byrd High School, National Optical, the Moose Lodge, Oakey’s and Lotz funeral homes, and
Carter Bank. The Lions also collect eyeglasses at special events such as the Dogwood Festival,
Senior Expo, and in nursing homes, libraries, and more.
Kay Patrick began working in the optical field after graduating from James Madison University
in 1970. A certified ophthalmic technician, she retired from Vistar in 2013 and began
volunteering at the Eyeglass Recycling Center—a natural transition since she “knew glasses and
how to make them, knew how to use the equipment, what the outliers might be, and what to
send.”
Vickie Portis, the assistant director, also retired from working at Vistar. Her job is “to sort every
box that comes in.”
Patrick says that 6,000 pairs of glasses were sent to victims of Hurricane Helene last fall,
delivered by God’s Pit Crew. Plans were for 1,500 pairs to be sent to Brazil (500) and Uganda
(1,000) on March 18, delivered by minister Rick Via of Blue Ridge. The largest shipment in one
week has been 18,000. In fiscal year 2024, 52,000 pairs were distributed; indications are that in
2025, up to 80,000 will be sent.
Volunteers are the key. No one affiliated with the recycling center is paid—it all comes from the
heart. From July 2023 to June 2024, local Lions and Leos donated 4152.5 hours of their time to
improve the quality of life for others through the gift of sight.
