As if someone hit snooze, we were woken again at 5:30am with a second false alarm. At least we were all ready for the trip to the community center to begin our first day!

We all met once we arrived to tour the facility, discuss the goals for the day, and receive our assignments. Everyone was excited as we filtered out to our areas to review our assignments and get to know our team members even more, and our local volunteers, some of whom were from Alcon. If was their first time assisting here and they were all excited as well. The first buses were running a little late which gave us time to settle into our assignments. That didn’t last long. Once the busses arrived we jumped into our roles.

The children were wonderful and very anxious to see the doctors. Everyone wanted to know if they were getting glasses. A few were a little nervous once it was their turn for the tonometer testing. The puff test. So Joe and Annie had an idea. Let some of the girls see the camera image of their friends eye. Rossa was first up for the test so Jazmine, Milalhi, and another friend walked behind Joe to see their friend Rossa’s eyes receive three puffs of air. They were all very amused and no longer nervous.

Later that morning, fifth grader Jennifer Hernandez was up for the puff test. She told me she had never worn glasses and as I looked at here paperwork and noticed she was 20/80 in each eye, I could only imagine how her life would change after today. She told me that she couldn’t see the board in class and that she had to get up and walk to the front of the class to read what her teacher would write on the board. She was a real trooper during the puff test and when she left to see the doctors she expressed to me how excited she was to get her glasses.

The last child I spoke with who had the puff test was Jesse. He was a 3rd grader that Amanda was testing. Jesse made in known that he did not like this test one bit and was extremely happy that it was over.

All in all it was a great first day. The folks from Houston’s Health and Human services were great and we were very appreciative of the hard work they put in on this first day. Sally, Traci, Kyrstine and the other folks from Alcon were a great addition to the team and we thank them greatly for their time and the wonderful dinner they provided for us after a long day. We saw over 300 children and made over 265 glasses our first day here in Houston.