Mobile Eye Care Van

A study Lion Joe Preston initiated to try to better serve the sight impaired in Yavapai County included traveling to rural county towns and speaking to local people about eye care where they live, studying county demographics.

A study was done in 2014 by Prescott Noon Lions to credibly measure the extent of eye care service need in every rural town in the county and local residents were asked about how eye care worked there. Towns visited included: Ash Fork, Bagdad, Black Canyon City, Camp Verde, Cordes Lakes, Mayer, Paulden and Seligman.

Each community had issues in common with other communities and other issues that were unique to that community. But one theme was a constant:
Wherever there was a Lions club, there was support for eye care. However, most of these rural areas had no Lions clubs and indeed little access to, or scant funds for, eye care. People in rural areas many times went without proper eye care. And transportation to towns with eye care was not always available. It became clear that bringing eye care to these rural towns would be the best way to deliver eye care.

At the time the use of an AZ Lions Mobile Eye Lab was an available for a fee. Using this resource required a number of steps including scheduling the lab, enlisting volunteer doctors, notifying local residents with restricted incomes and setting appointments and running an eye clinic.

However, another option became available. Through private and Lions club funding, the Prescott Noon Lions, operating on behalf of Lions of Yavapai, were able to procure a used mobile eye exam office set-up in an RV from the New Mexico Lions in 2015. That became the Lions of Yavapai Mobile Eye Care Van.

The Mobile Eye Care Van is a fully equipped mobile eye doctor examination room. It would be used by volunteer eye doctors to give eye exams and write prescriptions for eye glasses. It was our mission to use this mobile doctor’s office to bring eye care services to rural parts of Yavapai County, with particular attention to those residents who lack the means for or access to eye care services. There is no charge to the recipients of these services.

At the same time Lions of Yavapai was formed and began the process of accreditation with the IRS and LCI. The startup by Prescott Noon Lions, involved pilot events at the end of 2015 and in 2016, while work was done on an organizational structure and developed the funding parameters for utilizing the Mel Clack Fund. This also included trying to recruit eye doctors, which was one of the biggest challenges. The program then began to run eye care events the second half of 2017. That was the program launch.

Five more eye doctors were recruited in 2018, the program’s break-out year, when the program ran a full schedule of nine events, one event/month, and no events during the winter months. The program continued to run full schedules each year including 2020, the year that the COVID pandemic cancelled many of these types activities. The program was paused in April and May of 2020 and the schedule was resumed in June, implementing a strong COVID 19 protocol. The program ran two events/month in October and November to make up for the two months that were shut down in the spring. The program did run fewer events in 2021, where it only ran 6 events, due to leftover Covid-19 concerns and other factors. The program resumed a full schedule of nine events in 2022.

During 2022, an effort was started to sustain the program in future years by identifying procedures that needed to be documented and by trying to determine how to incorporate new leadership. Program documentation had started, but the quest to find new leadership did not get very far when one of the program founders was hospitalized in December of 2022. The program had reached an inflection point.

The program was suspended at the beginning of 2023 to begin the search for new leadership. Although Prescott Noon Lions had been running the program, the search for new leadership also included other Lions clubs. Presentations were made to several area Lions clubs in search for new leadership. One of the key points that these presentations made was, that there needed to be more Lions in leadership to split the duties in order to improve the sustainability of the program. In addition, a complete set of program documents was created to assist in transitioning the program to a new team.

In mid-2023, the Prescott Sunrise Lions stepped forward and plunged into a transition period with the objective to take complete control of the program in 2024. One of the concerns going forward was the age of the Eye Care Van which was 27 years old, and needed some repair work done on it. The Prescott Sunrise Lions succeed in getting Dignity Health-YRMC to donate their 10 year old Kids Clinic mobile unit to the Eye Care Van program, as it had just been replaced, eliminating that concern.

A training event was held over the summer and two joint Lions club training eye care events were held at Camp Verde on 10/28/23 and Black Canyon City on 12/2/23. The Prescott Sunrise Lions took a significant step forward in sharing leadership duties, effectively completing all post-event client tasks for both events. The completion of these two events also officially defined the end of the first chapter events. The old Eye Care Van, first used in 2015, was retired after the December 2023 event at an age of 27 years old.

In 2024 the new leadership team began Chapter Two by running events, using the LCI approved organization, Lions of Yavapai, the at the same event sites, in the same months and with mostly the same eye doctors as in previous years. They started using the new Mobile Vision Clinic for these events, the 10-year old kids clinic van now converted as mobile eye doctor’s office

A typical eye care event entails giving eye exams for approximately 20 clients. In addition to their exam, the clients are given a choice of designer frames to choose from and will have a pair of glasses mailed to them as a result of this event.

The list of sites in Yavapai County where eye care events exams have been held are:
Ash Fork, Bagdad, Black Canyon City, Camp Verde, Cordes Lakes, Mayer, Paulden, Seligman, Yarnell, and Wilhoit. Many of these have had two, and some three, events.

Approximately 6 - 7 Lions and a volunteer doctor staff each event along with the local site organizer. Lions from other Lions clubs in Yavapai County had been invited and participated in some of these events. From 2015 to 2023, these events were managed by Prescott Noon Lions Paul Chastain and Doug George with the assistance of John Schmitt. In 2024, Prescott Sunrise Lions, operating through Lions of Yavapai, have a managed the program with a team that includes Lions Doug Thompson, Mary Ellen Sandeen, Dereck Davis, Jim Myers and Dave Snyder.


Greeting a client at the Intake Table		Interviewing a client for the the Application for Eye Care Assistance

Assisting a client in filling out the doctor's examination form and recording preliminary refraction readings from the Spot Screener		Measuring client Seg Height

Assisting the client in the selection of eye glass frames		Lions and with the doctor, optical tech and food bank representative after an event

Lions of Yavapai Foundation

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