The History of Screening Eyes Early
In 2003, Assistance League of San Jose began working in partnership with Prevent Blindness of Northern California, creating a new program called Screening Eyes Early (S.E.E.). Prevent Blindness of Northern California is a nonprofit based in San Francisco that was searching for various other nonprofits for assistance. Prevent Blindness trained and certified members in various Assistance League chapters in the area. They approached Assistance League of San Jose to set up an eye screening program for preschoolers in collaboration and under their guidance. They explained that some vision problems in young children while in preschool can be treated before they go to elementary school. These vision problems include nearsightedness and amblyopia, known as lazy eye.
Assistance League of San Jose agreed to sign on for the program and members were trained. At that time, Prevent Blindness had several eye screening programs around Northern California. There was a lot of interest in the program and many who were trained to participate in Screening Eyes Early did so because either they, their children, or grandchildren had vision issues that early screening would have helped.
Chapter members were assigned to preschools for screenings, did additional follow-up as needed, and members evaluated the program annually. Roughly 20-30 children in each school were screened and one or two of those children required a follow up. The follow-up information was given to Prevent Blindness and they took over from there. Throughout the years, we lost some schools and added others.
At first, it only served in the 95120 zip code, and in around 6 local preschools. The first member to lead the program was Marcia Mocsy, who moved out of state after a year. The program went through various chairpersons in the first few years while Prevent Blindness continued to train and advise. The program was then expanded to include low income preschools outside of the 95120 area.
In 2016 Prevent Blindness changed their focus to expand their own program solely in the San Francisco and Oakland area and no longer trained and worked with the various Assistance League chapters. Assistance League of San Jose received permission from National and the Board to continue the program and the chairpersons at the time, Linda Luporini and Paula Acree, developed the training module based on what they learned from Prevent Blindness and from California’s Child Health & Disability Prevention (CHDP) program. This is the same program we have today.
During the years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 Screening Eyes Early volunteers could not go into the preschools due to Covid. Screening Eyes Early kept in touch with 16 preschools during the pandemic but did not provide services. Volunteers resumed training volunteers in October & November 2022 for new members joining the program. Vision screening began again in January 2023.
As of early 2023, four additional Agreements were created for pre-schools. Screeners have gone to six preschools and have conducted 12 vision screenings. A total of 234 three- to five- year-olds were screened and 13 referrals were made.
Over the period from 2014 to 2020, ten to eighteen preschools were served each year, 3,147 children were screened, 143 children were referred, 57 received glasses, and five children were treated for amblyopia. Screening Eyes Early continues to be a wonderful way to volunteer with other Assistance League of San Jose members as a team.
