Now is the time when students across the country head back to their classrooms eager to learn and excited for all that school brings. But, with 80% of children’s learning occurring through visual processing¹ and one in four students in the United States having an undiagnosed vision problem significant enough to impair their academic performance², many kids are starting the school year behind their peers. With these statistics in mind, OneSight, an independent nonprofit leading the global movement to help the world see, today announced the launch of their Focus on Sight program.

Focus on Sight was developed to create a quicker, more streamlined approach to providing access to vision care for underserved students and their families. OneSight works with school-based health centers across the country to integrate vision care into their comprehensive healthcare approach by providing grants and vision care expertise. These school-based vision centers will provide:

– Access to quality eye health examinations
– Diagnosing services for common vision problems like farsightedness and
nearsightedness, plus testing for eye diseases and conditions
– Prescribing, dispensing, repairs and adjustment for corrective eyeglasses

“The start up costs for a school-based vision center can be very high and many of these organizations have never worked in the vision care space,” said Lisa Curcuruto, Focus on Sight Program Coordinator at OneSight. “With the Focus on Sight program, OneSight will be able to provide both expertise and funding to ensure a school-based vision center is successfully opened and providing access to students and families in underserved communities.”

OneSight will provide funding via grants for school-based vision center (SBVC) programs in the United States and U.S. territories that aim to provide access to vision care for students in communities with need. Grants are awarded through an application process and grantees are selected based on their history of managing a school-based health center, their focus on sustainability, and the need within the community they are serving. OneSight will provide six (6) grants to new school-based vision centers in 2017. This will increase the total number of OneSight school-based vision centers open to 15 by the end of 2018, providing more than 500,000 students and their families with access to vision care and glasses.

Focus on Sight grant applications will open September 1 and recipients will be announced in February 2017. For more information, visit www.onesight.org/focusonsight.