NEW YORK—Since 2012, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving has been celebrated as Giving Tuesday, a global movement that encourages people to do good. According to the Giving Tuesday organization, “GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world on December 3, 2019 and every day. It was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, this idea has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.” This year, Giving Tuesday falls on Tuesday, December 3 and is an opportunity for vision-care related groups as well as optical retailers and ECPs to take part.

Last year, organizations and schools including Restoring Vision, SUNY Optometry, and Prevent Blindness were involved in Giving Tuesday. Calling it #GivingSightDay, Restoring Vision aimed to raise $30,000 to bring the gift of sight to 40,000 people around the world. SUNY Optometry raised $22,217 of their $20,000 goal last Giving Tuesday, with the money supporting vision care for women, men, and children regardless of their ability to pay, as well as community outreach programs such as care for homebound and homeless patients, scholarships for students, and funding for vision science research. Prevent Blindness aimed to raise $5,000 last year for education efforts and eye health programs.

So far this year, the Giving Tuesday organization says more than 3,600,000 gifts and $400,000,000 have been given. The mean gift size is $105. More information on how to get involved with Giving Tuesday on a local or international level can be found here, and information on getting involved as a company or organization is available here.