Giving Kids The Gift of Sight

At Steinway Eye Care in Queens, children’s glasses come in a wide variety of styles. 

“We’ve got rainbows, we’ve got balloons, we’ve got superheroes,” says Sam Pirozollo, the shop’s owner. But for some kids who need glasses, the problem isn’t finding a pair they like, it’s about finding a pair they can afford. That’s where Tonya Daniels come in.

“A lot of the families that we serve, these parents, they just don't have money. And in their eyes, eyeglasses is 250 dollars and up; 'I have to feed my family.’”

Daniels is the Program Manager for the New York division of ChildSight, a program of Helen Keller International that visits schools and provides vision screening and glasses to underprivileged kids. In the 15 years she’s been with the program, she estimates they’ve helped over 200,000 students. 

It's a cause that means a lot to her because of her own experiences. Daniels is amblyopic, a condition which has left her nearly blind in one eye. For much of her childhood it went undiagnosed, and she says ChildSight encounters children with the condition at every school they screen at.    

That personal connection to the issue is also true for Eric Graves. He’s an optician and the owner of EAG labs in Mount Vernon, New York, the company that provides the actual eyewear the kids receive through ChildSight. Like many of those kids, Graves didn’t have a lot of money growing up. 

“I’m from New York City, a housing project called Douglas Projects, and it was tough, it wasn’t easy, it was not an easy experience.”

Luckily for him, Graves was able to get glasses when he needed them, and that background is part of what keeps him involved in ChildSight.  

In its 20th year coming up,Tonya Daniels estimates that about 25,000 kids will get glasses through the program; before the recession in 2008, however, they were able to provide about 4 times that number.

Nonetheless, Daniels isn’t worried about the future of ChildSight, and she makes clear that even after 15 years, she still loves her job:

“I get up and go to work every day and I’m happy, because I like what I do, and it feels so good when you hear a student say ‘thank you so much—I really love my glasses.’”