BIG RAPIDS, Mich. — Fifteen students from the Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State University are set to fly to Dominica to bring thousands of eye-care products to the poverty-stricken, Caribbean island nation east of Puerto Rico.
The students are packing 35 duffel bags filled with thousands of eyeglasses, readers and sunglasses, cartons of eye drops and portable equipment for eye exams.
"What these trips do is establish normalcy," said Daniel Wrubel, Michigan College of Optometry professor. "A nurse down there once told us, 'When you're here, it says there is hope.'"
Dominica is a small island in the Caribbean about 90 minutes by air south and east of Puerto Rico. Many of its 75,000 people live in poverty, with one World Bank report suggesting a rate as high as 43 percent. Something as simple as a pair of reading glasses is often out of reach.
Wrubel notes that the Michigan Foundation for Vision Awareness has generously helped fund the student portion of the mission trips for the past 25 years. However, each trip still costs each student around $2,500, and the students also give up vacation or break time at work or at school.
On a typical trip, the team, including MCO students, will have more than 1,000 patient encounters; dispense some 1,000 pairs of prescription eyeglasses; give out another 1,000 pairs of over the counter “readers” and 1,000 pairs of sunshades; make 100-plus referrals for severe hypertension and other medical and eye care; and coordinate more than $100,000 worth of donated equipment, supplies, and eye drops.
As he looks ahead to this year’s trip, Wrubel also is looking back with amazement at the impact of his past 29 trips: almost 50,000 patient encounters; more than 100,000 pairs of prescription glasses, readers, tinted bifocals, and sunshades dispensed; some 2,000 Patients referred for medical eye care services; almost $2 million dollars in donated equipment and supplies; and more than 125 MCO optometric interns.
Beyond that, he said, there are simply “countless precious moments and priceless educational experiences.”
Wrubel and his students, plus other volunteers, will leave Sunday, May 12.
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