By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
It’s not every day that people leave the comfortable confines of their community in order to make the lives of others better. Dr. Christina Fox of Bucyrus’ Envision Eyecare just completed her 11th such journey.
Fox left Bucyrus for El Salvador from Jan. 24-30 along with seven optometrists from Ohio. They combined with four optometrists from El Salvador to give free eye examinations and eyeglass prescriptions. Fox explained what the trip was like.
“We went out of San Miguel, we stayed there, but we went to four different cities from there. It was about an hour away each time. They were various sizes of towns some a little smaller than others, but we saw about 1,000 people each day.
“Sixty-five percent of the people who went through got a pair of glasses. That’s basically what the mission was, to fix refractive errors so that people could see to learn and do their jobs,” Fox added.
Fox shared a few of her favorite moments from the mission.
“One lady was happy to see the big E because she had some trauma. I had a 6-year-old that wouldn’t look at me until I put his prescription on him, and then his eyes lit up. He had a pretty bad prescription, so he couldn’t (see) very well prior to that, and just the joy on his face was the reason you go.”
While this was Fox’s 11th time going on a mission as an optometrist, it was the first time she had planned such a trip.
“I started a year ago planning that. I got the contact information with the organization that helped us called Fudem,” Fox noted. “I started emailing back and forth with them a year ago. They took care of the in-country arrangements, finding out where we were going, our hotel arrangements, our travel. I took care of getting our passports, and all of our necessary paper work in, contacted the U.S. embassy, told them we were going, coordinated everyone’s flights. So it was a lot of emailing and phone calls.
“I also packed all of the equipment,” Fox added. “We took down about three suitcases of equipment with the trip. I was thankful for the in-country organization, they did a great job.”
Giving a description of what El Salvador was like, Fox explained that while there was tight security that it was still a great experience.
“We were under pretty tight security. We weren’t allowed to travel unless we were escorted by someone in-country because El Salvador is a little unstable right now. We got to go to the beach for half a day, and we did get to see a lot of the country when traveling to get to where we were going,” Fox said. “I’ve had that happen before and I felt completely safe in El Salvador even if I didn’t have the armed guards. The people were very gracious. You just have to be smart when traveling even in the states.
“The people in El Salvador are very patient very gracious. They waited. When we got there at 8 o’clock in the morning they were waiting in line, no pushing no shoving. They waited all day to get a pair of glasses. They were very gracious and very grateful,” Fox said.
Fox, who is also the President for Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity (VOSH) Ohio, explained that VOSH Ohio had already completed three mission trips this year with next year’s trips already starting to take shape.
“We are going to go to Honduras next January,” Fox said. “I won’t be planning the trip, but I will be the lead doctor.”
Those with old or unused eyeglasses can donate them at Envision Eyecare for use on future trips.