Dear Friends and Family,
There's a saying that I love:
"A winnable battle should never be lost"
As many of you know, when our daughter Violet was first born she was completely blind. She had 'total bilateral congenital cataracts', which means that at birth her lenses, which should have been crystal clear, were completely blocked. Because we live in a fortunate time, place, and economic class she was able to be diagnosed at 10 weeks and had her first surgery a week later before too much irreversible damage had been done. If you know Violet today, she is a bundle of happy energy who's going to live a relatively normal life.
Around the world a child becomes blind every minute—80% of this blindness is preventable or treatable. For most of those who are blind the battle for sight is winnable.
There are families just like us around the world and right here in America that don't have the medical infrastructure or resources to diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate children just like Violet.
Surgery is scary, but it's probably the best gift a child with sight impairment can be given.
What we're doing about it
Violet Sees is off to an incredible start. We’re grateful for your support and because of you we’re actively working to end childhood preventable blindness by helping kids and families in three specific ways.
We’re giving free glasses to kids who need them, working to expand and improve vision screening programs so more kids can be screened as early as possible and providing funding to continue research to find the best treatments possible for childhood vision conditions.
Your support is an integral part of our ability to help and we can’t say thank you enough! We’re incredibly excited to see how we’ll continue to grow and one day eliminate preventable childhood blindness!
How you can help
1. Donate to Violet Sees!
2. Sign up for our email list so that we can update you and include you in our progress.
3. Like our Facebook page.
4. We have built a lean fundraising model in which 100% of public donations go directly to supporting our programs. We have a hand full of private donors who help cover our small operating budget. If you are interested in supporting this mission in this way, email me at jen@violetsees.org .
5. Be our cheerleader. We're going to need a lot of help to get the word out, we need as many people rooting for us as possible.
I want to thank you for reading this, and I want you to know that the scale of problem that we're fighting is huge. Every battle won changes the future for a child, a family, and a community. Let's take this on together!
Sincerely,
Jen Anderson
Executive Director, Violet Sees
