BY ANN GENADER
WEST MILFORD ‑‑ Dedicated to screening young school children for eye problems, West Milford Lions Club President Bill Francis said that with a screener purchased 11 years ago the club has tested 600 kindergarten and pre-school children for amblyopia.
Francis and other local club members attended the Oct. 18 Township of West Milford Council meeting to observe the 100th birthday of the 1.4 million member Lions International Organization.
They invited interested people to join the organization and participate as volunteers to help the community and the world. Francis said membership in the organization a very rewarding experience.
Meetings are held at DeMarco’s Pizza and Restaurant, 1926 Union Valley Road, West Milford, at 7 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday of every month.
Local club member Barbara Corsaro, a veteran kindergarten teacher, initiated the local effort to screen young children for amblyopia (lazy eye) followed by professional treatment when problems are found.
The problem commonly starts when one eye has much better focus than the other.
Sometimes, one eye is more farsighted or has lots of astigmatism, but the other eye doesn’t. When the child’s brain gets both a blurry image and a clear one, it starts to ignore the blurry one. If this goes on for months or years in a young child, vision in the blurry eye will get worse.
Sometimes the child’s eyes don’t line up as they should. One eye could turn out – something doctors call strabismus – and it can also lead to amblyopia.
Children in Bloomingdale, Kinnelon, Sparta, Jefferson, Ringwood and West Milford have been screened in the West Milford Lions program.
Bob Moore, who served on the International Board of Directors 2005 to 2007, explained that focus of the volunteer effort on sight conservation was established in 1925 after contact with the international organization by Helen Keller, an American author, activist and lecturer who was both deaf and blind.
Moore also mentioned that West Milford club members have helped Camp Marsella – which serves children who are blind – for 50 years or so since the club formed in 1956.
He said used eyeglasses are collected each year and distributed to people in Third World countries.
The Lions also work with the West Milford Health Department annually to hold a public health fair.