NEW YORK—Vision Monday is proud to announce the winners of our 2nd Annual Dispensing and Retail Excellence (D.A.R.E.) Awards.

The 2012 D.A.R.E. Award winners are:

• The Resistance Is Futile Award for Most Daring Advertising Campaign—l.a. Eyeworks, Los Angeles, Calif.
• The Seeing Green Award for Most Daring Eco-chievement—Accurate Optical Company, Salisbury, MD.
• The Shop It Like It’s Hot Award for Most Daring Store Design, Retail Environment, Merchandising and/or Window Display—Europtics, Denver, Colo.
• The Sphere of Influence Award for Most Daring Community Outreach, Philanthropic or Patient Education Program—Henry Ford OptimEyes, Madison Heights, Mich.
• The Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Web Award for Most Daring Social Media or Web Presence—Sight Optical, Grand Rapids, Mich.

The D.A.R.E. Awards were conceived to honor daring optical retailers and dispensers from across North America in five different categories, with an additional winner, chosen by reader votes, for a sixth award.

Retailers and ECPs were asked to submit entries from June 6 through July 6. Those submissions were reviewed by a panel of judges and the winner in each category was identified. The judges also selected five entries they deemed worthy of special recognition for their daring approaches across different aspects of optical retailing to be put up for an additional “We the People” Reader’s Vote Award. From July 16 through Aug. 6, readers voted on those five nominees to determine a winner. The entry with the second highest number of reader votes was named Honorable Mention.

The winner of the ‘We the People’ Reader’s Vote Award was Innovative Eye Care in Charlotte, N.C., with Honorable Mention going to Modern Eyes in Austin, Texas.

To see all the winner’s submission entries and a sampling of the supporting materials that earned each of these retailers this year’s honor, look for the complete story in VM’s Aug. 27 issue or by going to VisionMonday.com, where you will also be able to revisit the retailers who claimed the prize in 2011.

Please help us in congratulating this year’s winners. And if you missed entering this year’s D.A.R.E. Awards, we hope the caliber of all our winners inspires you to participate next year. Stay daring!