half Helen Blog

April Newsletter 

Your support has a huge impact… It was quite emotional for 5th grader Joseph to “see the world clearly” for the first time.

That’s A Wrap!

We conducted our last pop-up-style eye exam clinic on March 31st at IDEA Runberg. Dr. Hearn provided eye exams to 14 students and prescribed glasses for each student. In total, for the 2020-21 school year, we provided eye exams for 162 low-income children and prescribed glasses to 132 of the children. half Helen’s intern, Kelsey, has been busy making glasses this spring with our in-house edging system provided by Impact Austin. We will deliver and fit our final pairs of glasses this week. optical Prime, our mobile eye clinic, will replace pop-up-style clinics next school year.

HCB Health Designs optical Prime’s Exterior Wrap

 You can imagine our excitement when Austin’s premier healthcare marketing company offered to design our exterior wrap for optical Prime pro bono. Of course, we loved the price, but the talent at HCB is priceless. We wholeheartedly thank HCB Health founders, Kerry Hilton and Nancy Beesley for bringing to life our new mission to help children and adults “See the World Clearly”. We look forward to launching optical Prime, the biggest little eye clinic, this May!

Coming Soon: Eye Care for Low-income Adults

 optical Prime will provide half Helen with the opportunity to expand to serve adult patients. We recently became an approved eye care provider of the Community Vision Program (aka Vision Voucher Program) administered by CommUnity Care Health Center. The Community Vision Program is funded through the St. David’s Foundation. Through this partnership, half Helen will fill a gap in healthcare for adults as well as generate revenue to sustain our ongoing pediatric program.