Making a difference….Right before your eyes! When you volunteer at a California Lions Friends in Sight (CLFIS) vision screening it is much more than just giving out recycled eyeglasses. You put yourself on a team with dedicated volunteers whose work on any given Saturday restores vision and helps prevent blindness for hundreds of real people who need our help. When you become a CLFIS volunteer, your fellow volunteers jump in to get you started at any one of several patient care work stations. You will be doing things like operating automated measuring instruments, assisting doctors, or helping patients with their “new” eyeglasses. When you become a CLFIS volunteer,  you are often rewarded with overwhelming gratitude from the people you served and will have stories to tell of the smiles that appeared right before your eyes.

“It’s always great when you go to these clinics and see all the people lined up… you’ll be changing somebody’s life. Every one of those glasses is going to change someone’s life.”

– David A Radtke I Past Lions Council Chair

“The little ones who’ve never had glasses all of sudden realize something’s different. They sit up straight, their facial expression changes, and then it’s just pure joy”

– lrasema Guzman I Past CLFIS Director

  If you are a new volunteer simply select the screenings where you want to volunteer from the VIEW ALL + link at the top of the page and come. No advance registration is needed. Sign-in at the Volunteer Table where you will find lots of good information about California Lions Friends in Sight. It is suggested that you come a little early (Before 8am) to help with set up and to be assigned an area to work.

California Lions Friends in Sight is an all-volunteer organization fully funded by generous donors. We have no paid employees. Please help those in need with a donation. If you, a member of your family, or a friend has been diagnosed with vision threatening eye disease or gone without eyeglasses, you know how debilitating it can be. Your donation will help a child read and see in class. It will touch the lives of other grateful people who might otherwise go without an eye health screening and eyeglasses. Click here to make a donation.

How donations are used:

• • General Fund
    General operating expenses include vehicle maintenance/repair, fuel, and insurance. Additional funding is needed for ophthalmic instruments and equipment, their maintenance and repair, eyeglasses fabrication, optical laboratory supplies, screening supplies, printing of forms and other collateral material.
  • Other Options
    Donors can choose how their donation is used from a menu on the How You Can Donate page. Click here. Donations are most often made to the General Fund in a one-time donation or with automatic monthly payments. Additional choices are available for those wishing to help fund special needs identified by the organization.
    • • Van Replacement
        California Lions Friends in Sight uses two 12-passenger vans to transport volunteers and haul 16-foot trailers loaded down with eyeglasses and equipment. Both are outdated and sorely in need of replacement. One was originally purchased with matching funds from LCI. The other made possible back in 2010 by a Hemet-Ramona Valley Lions Club $50,000 donation. Both vans have undergone significant wear and tear on long hauls from Beaumont to throughout Southern California, plus over 40 trips to Mexico.
      • Building Fund
        California Lions Friends in Sight is in critical need of a building to improve operations and insure for the future. The organization is currently housed in garage space on loan from Calimesa Breakfast Lions Club member Don Ranney. It is overcrowded with zero room for the expansion. The organization’s growth has brought about a real need for a building to garage, service and repair the vans and trailers. Additional space is needed for an optical laboratory, eyeglass recycling workstations, space for supplies and eyeglass inventory, and an area for ophthalmic instrument storage and repair.
      • Medical Surgical Need
        At every vision screening our volunteer doctors detect vision threatening disease in some patients. They receive a written referral with advice to seek to care from an eyecare professional. Often these are urgent situations identified in real time. We have a goal of helping the uninsured patients with the most urgent need to access a doctor visit and eye surgery. Financial support for the Medical Surgical Need will be used to build the fund.

Don’t throw away your old eyeglasses! You can donate them at hundreds of drop off locations throughout Southern California. Just click on the link below and enter your zip code to find a doctor’s office, business or church that collects them for pick up by Lions Club volunteers. By donating your old prescription eyeglasses, you are giving the gift of sight to someone in need. And, you can donate eyeglass cases and sunglasses. We give them to vision screening patients as an added benefit. Click here to find a drop off location near you. If you don’t find a drop off location near you, contact a local Lions Club or mail to California Lions Friends in Sight, P.O. Box 7,  Beaumont, CA 92223.

Our vision screenings would not be possible without the help of volunteers working behind the scenes. It all starts with collecting donated eyeglasses. Volunteers then sort, sanitize, and measure the power of the lenses. Other volunteers load data to complete the computerized inventory management process.  You can even work in the CLFIS optical lab making eyeglasses for patients for whom a match could not be found at their screening. Here are a few more behind the scenes volunteer opportunities for you to consider:

• Van Drivers
• Vehicle Maintenance
• Fundraising
• Verifying Eyeglasses
• Eyeglass Inventory Control
• Communications
• Doctor, Optician and Volunteer Recruiting
• Placing Eyeglass Collection Boxes
• Recycled Eyeglasses
• Optical Lab Eyeglass Fabrication

If you have an interest in joining with other volunteers working behind the scenes and want to learn more, send an email inquiry to info@californialionsfriendsinsight.org

Help us extend our helping hand 

Together, We Make Tomorrow Look Better