When Bob Hawk was in El Salvador with a Rotary team making eyeglasses for locals, a woman came whose vision was significantly impaired. JAY KRETZMEIER reported that construction of a shelter on the Southwind Rail-Trail would start within 30 days about halfway between Iola and Humboldt.
With dexterity borne of having made many pairs, Hawk fashioned eyeglasses for the woman in a matter of about 15 minutes. A year later back in El Salvador, he made a point to look up the woman.
Her life had changed.
“She was making a living sewing doll clothes,” a vocation she couldn’t have pursued a year earlier because of her poor eyesight, Hawk said.
That is one of many success stories Hawk recalls when talking about Iola Rotary’s Vision Quest program, some of which he related while giving a demonstration on how to quickly fashion a pair of glasses during the club’s meeting Thursday.
“Sixty to 70 percent of the world’s people can be helped,” Hawk said, with the simple eyeglasses he and others make from a kit containing tools, materials and a jig.
He made a pair Thursday, also in 15 minutes, to the amazement of Rotarians who hadn’t seen the process previously.
The kits are available through 6110 Vision Quest in care of Iola’s Rotary Club, with a single kit having enough materials to make more than 300 pairs. Cost is $250.
They are made from a small-diameter stainless steel welding rod, plastic lenses and plastic tubing to protect ears. Materials for a single pair of glasses cost about 50 cents, and kits containing materials alone to make another 300 pairs cost $140.
The Iola club’s first foray into international eye care started with a trip to Chile arranged and promoted by Ellis Potter, a now retired Iola optometrist and Rotarian. The eyeglasses came later, and originated with a missionary in Florida who supplies the Iola club with the kits.
Before a pair of glasses is made, a simple test tells how strong the plastic lenses need to be.
To date the Iola club has touched lives in 20 countries, in Central and South America, Asia and Easter Island.
“Concrete will be poured first and the shelter should be completed in 60 to 75 days,” Kretzmeier said. It will be just south of the trail’s intersection with Massachusetts Road, at a spot where Allen County has added fill to make it level with the trail.
Iola Rotary Club is a sponsor of the trail.
Also, trophies have arrived for the Neil Westervelt Memorial Iola Rotary Club Car Show, scheduled for Saturday and a feature of the Allen County Fair in Riverside Park.
The club made about $575 from a concession at the Charley Melvin event and has about 40 percent of the pulled pork left, which will be sold at the car show.
A number of car owners from throughout eastern Kansas have promised to be at the show, said its chairman, Tom Brigham.
Rotary project aids vision
