The Arlington County Sheriff’s Office has teamed with the Lions Club Eyeglass Recycling Center of Northern Virginia to help prepare donated eyeglasses for distribution to medical, church and other non-profit groups, who distribute them to individuals who need them in the U.S. and throughout the world.
The center takes the eyeglasses donated to Lions clubs in the Fredericksburg-to-Baltimore corridor, and makes them suitable for distribution, at no charge to the patient, to individuals who cannot afford to buy eyeglasses.
Inmates at the Arlington County Detention Facility process the eyeglasses by washing them by hand (a three-step process), ascertaining the prescription in each lens using a device called a lens analyzer, labeling each pair in its own bag, and sorting them by prescription. Once this process is completed, the Sheriff’s Office returns the glasses to the Lion’s Club for distributions.
Since the inception of the program earlier in the year, inmates have processed more than 1,500 pairs of glasses.
“It was a win-win proposition for everyone,” Sheriff Beth Arthur said. “The Lions Club gets their donated glasses processed, and it provides a job opportunity for incarcerated inmates and allows them an opportunity to give something back to the community.”