River Hills/Lake Wylie Lions Club member Lloyd Viets just returned from a trip to Honduras, where he performed eye screenings for 237 adults and children at a hospital there. The program started in 2016, when local surgeon Dr. David Parsons expressed interest in the Kidsight program. For many years, he and a team of doctors had been visiting hospitals and villages in Honduras each year to do wellness exams and Dr. Parsons felt that the Lions’ screenings would be a great addition to the work they did.
Over the course of the six annual trips to Honduras, 6000 people received scans, 900 people were referred to doctors, 2800 pairs of eyeglasses were issued and 2500 eye drops were given. But this year the doctors’ group has discontinued their work there, so this was the last year for our program. With the exception of 2020 due to COVID, Lloyd has made the trip every year since 2017. Of the 237 screenings he completed this year, he referred 50 people to eye doctors and issued 194 reading glasses. He also provided 96 eye drops and 68 pairs of sunglasses.
Lloyd is our Club’s Lion of the Year – an award he certainly deserves. We can all benefit from following his example of service.