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Healthy Athletes™

Opening Eyes

The Special Olympics-Lions Clubs International Opening Eyes program is a vision and eye health screening in partnership with the Lions Clubs International Foundation. Led by volunteer vision care professionals, Opening Eyes is able to offer prescription eyewear, sunglasses, and sports goggles to Special Olympics athletes.

Special Olympics Lions Clubs International Opening Eyes (OE) is a program designed to provide quality eye care for all people with developmental disabilities, and particularly for those who are competing as Special Olympics athletes. The Sports Vision Section of the American Optometric/professional Association (AOA) developed the original pilot program, which eventually became OE. As of 1997, OE has become an official program of Special Olympics (SO).

There are several ways that the OE program helps to increase the athlete's access to care:

  1. Providing vision screenings, refractions, and dispensing of appropriate eyewear to Special Olympic athletes during Special Olympics Events.

  2. Making permanent changes in the attitudes of the optometrists/eyecare practitioners and optometry students who volunteer to participate in the OE vision screenings.

  3. Educating the athletes, their guardians, coaches and administrators about the importance of vision to the athletes’ performance in sports, school and work.

  4. Providing continuing education to our volunteer optometrists/eyecare practitioners in order to familiarize them with the best techniques for testing this patient population

Another important way OE helps to increase access to care is by giving volunteer optometrists/eyecare practitioners and students an opportunity to work with a population to which they may not have had previous exposure. For many of our volunteers at past events, this wonderful experience has opened their eyes to the visual needs of people with developmental disabilities. The concern that they may have previously felt about treating a patient with special needs disappears in this positive, non-threatening environment.

Opening Eyes Glasses

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2012 Opening Eyes Dates

  • April 14, 2012 - Indoor Sports Tournament at UW Oshkosh
  • June 8, 2012 - Summer Games at UW Stevens Point

Clinical Director

  • Dr. Kellye Knueppel, OD, FCOUD

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More Information

Visit the Special Olympics Inc. Healthy Athletes Page

For more information on the Healthy Athletes Program, contact

Melissa Schoenbrodt
Phone: 608-442-5676
E-mail: mschoenbrodt@specialolympicswisconsin.org