by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington Lions Club will be hosting a four-person scramble this Saturday at the Wellington Golf Club that will be raising money for a new eye screener.

The net proceeds of this tournament will all be directed toward the purchase of SPOT vision-screening device better known as an eye screener.

The golf tournament will have a shotgun start at 8 a.m. While the preregistration deadline is over, you may be able to still get into the golf tournament by calling the golf course at 620-326-7904.

One of the main missions of the Lions Club is to combat sight disorders. 

In January of this year, the Wellington Noon lions Club was “loaned” one of these SPOT vision-screening devices from Lions Club International. The School Nurse was able to “screen” about ½ of the 766 elementary school students in the Wellington School system before the device had to be returned for use by another Lions Club.

Sight disorders in children can often be corrected if caught early enough. Unfortunately, some children never get tested and the window of opportunity closes.

The Wellington Noon Lions Club Board of Directors decided in February to dedicate fund raising to purchase one of these devices not only for use by the school nurse, but also for other smaller school districts in Sumner County and anywhere else that have groups of young children (day cares, baby-sitters, etc.)

The device “takes a picture” of the child’s eyes, requires minimal cooperation by the child and wirelessly outputs information about the child’s eyes such as potential indications of nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, unequal pupil size, unequal refractive power and eye misalignment.

The results are easy to understand and the “photo” can be taken by volunteers. The results are then interpreted by optometry professionals.

The cost of the device is approximately $7,000.

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