The Arlington County Sheriff’s Office has teamed with the Lion’s 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 that need them in the U.S. and throughout the world.
The Center takes the eyeglasses donated to Lions Clubs in the area and makes them suitable for distribution, at no charge to the patient, to individuals that 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 who then distributes them. Since the inception of the program in 2009, ACDF inmates have processed over 1,500 pairs of eyeglasses.