DENVER—Tomorrow Oct. 12 is World Sight Day, when leading North American optometric companies, networks, schools and practices will once again join a coalition led by Optometry Giving Sight in support of World Sight Day and the World Sight Day Challenge, which runs through October, according to an announcement from Optometry Giving Sight.

This is the 11th year of the Challenge, which encourages all members of the vision care community to make a donation or participate in a fundraising event to help fund sustainable eye health projects for people who are needlessly blind or vision impaired. These include support for projects that will help give sight and hope to more than 1 million children as part of the Our Children’s Vision campaign—and this year, in recognition of recent events, projects providing eyecare to people affected by the hurricanes.

Coalition members include ABB Optical Group, Alcon Foundation, AllAboutVision.com, Bausch + Lomb, CooperVision, Essilor, EyePromise, FYidoctors, Vision Source, VSP Global and Zeiss Vision.

Another 45 companies are participating in the Challenge in addition to 21 Schools of Optometry. More companies, networks and practices are signing up every day. Click here to read more about their efforts as reported by VMail.

“It is a privilege to lead this industry based coalition in support of the 11th annual World Sight Day Challenge in North America,” said Clive Miller, CEO of Optometry Giving Sight. “We encourage all eye and vision care companies, networks, schools, and practices to take the Challenge by fundraising throughout October, making a personal donation, involving friends, colleagues, staff and patients via our peer to peer fundraising pages, and / or by purchasing T-shirts.

Several companies and organizations have developed their own initiatives to raise funds and awareness on World Sight Day.

This World Sight Day, Essilor is launching #PutVisionFirst as it continues its mission to improve lives by improving sight. #PutVisionFirst seeks to draw attention to the role of good vision in the classroom, at work and on the road. The campaign will drive people to a dedicated website www.putvisionfirst.com, available in nine languages, where people can check their vision through online screening.

If a person is detected to have a potential vision problem and commits to following up with a comprehensive eye exam from an ECP, Essilor will donate $1 on their behalf to Our Children’s Vision and Essilor Vision Foundation.

RestoringVision, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing new reading glasses and sunglasses to people in need, is taking action on World Sight Day by launching a social media initiative to raise awareness about the need for reading glasses around the world.

The organization is encouraging all of its partners and sponsors to become part of World Sight Day by sharing the work that they do together to help people see and live better on their social media pages using the WSD 2017 call to action, #MakeVisionCount.

There are over 544 million people living in developing countries with near vision impairment due to the lack of access to available, affordable reading glasses. This is one of the biggest global health problems with one of the easiest, most cost-effective solutions.

RestoringVision is taking World Sight Day as an opportunity to raise awareness about this issue and get more people and organizations involved.

Approximately 80 percent of the 850,000 people in Cameroon who are blind or visually impaired could have their condition reversed or improved. On World Sight Day, Orbis, which operates the Flying Eye Hospital, will be broadcasting its first ever Facebook livestream from their training program in Cameroon, West Africa. Tune in at 9:00 a.m. and watch the Flying Eye Hospital team hard at work strengthening the clinical and operational capacity of eyecare professionals at their two partner hospitals in Yaounde, Cameroon.

World Site Day began in 2000 and is coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). This year for World Sight Day, IAPB is challenging amateur and professional photographers around the world to join them in highlighting the impact of eye health in people’s lives, by taking part in an International Photography Competition with the theme, Make Vision Count. Send IAPB your pictures with the hashtag, #MakeVisionCount by Oct. 15, 2017 to communications@iapb.org.

The Zyloware team will be celebrating World Sight Day by sharing the important message on social media and getting the facts out by focusing attention on the global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment. Visit Zyloware’s blog here to hear their messages and learn how you can get involved.

To mark World Sight Day, SmartBuyGlasses.com, a leading online eyewear retailer will offer over 350 eyeglass frame models with prices starting from $0. David Menning, co-founder of Motion Global group, the parent company of SmartBuyGlasses.com said, “By offering free frames, we are not just offering our customers the best possible deal, but we are also making better vision more accessible to people. This is what World Sight Day is all about. We hope that more people can see the world more clearly.”

The promotion is available on the premium items from the SBG Collection catalog, with a large variety of shapes and materials, including rimless and semi-rimless eyeglasses. The campaign will run for 8 days, starting on Oct. 12. As part of the event, customers can get a new pair of eyeglasses with frames free of charge and lenses starting from $39, the company said. The promotion ends on Oct. 20, 2017.

For more information about the World Sight Day Challenge, or to make your donation today, visit givingsight.org or call +1 888 OGS GIVE (USA) / +1 403-670-2619 (Canada).