Spectrek Day - We need your old prescription glasses.
The Lions Club of Reading collect more than 5,000 unwanted prescription spectacles for the annual Lions Spectrek Day!!
Every April throughout the Central, Southern England (District 105D) Lions gather together for the annual Spectrek event. This is the day when all the old prescription glasses collected throughout the year are boxed and delivered to Chichester Lions (via Midhurst Lions) who help with the storage and packing.
So what happens to the specs after Midhurst?
The Midhurst Lions have a regular sorting and packing session. They go through the specs discarding the junk, breakages etc. Where gold is present in the frames, they arrange for its extraction to raise money for the Southampton Hospital Eye Department. Midhurst also have a regular cases and sunglasses stall at the local community centre. The repacked specs are then passed on to Chichester Lions.
Chichester Lions store the packages and twice a year load them onto a large transit van and cross the channel to Le Havre. Here, with the assistance of Le Havre Lions, the specs are taken to a small charity. This Charity, run by a nuns and manned by a number of disabled people, who then grade the specs and prepare them for the last leg of their journey to sight projects in Africa and Asia.
Any money collected en-route or donations received from other Clubs, is donated to Eye Camps in Africa.
We are very proud of our collective achievments. The Lions spectacle collection project is more than recycling; it is reuse of a costly asset.
This year we collected more than 95,000 pairs of spectacles and over the last 28 years we have collected over 2.2 million pairs!. How much would they cost at today's prices? £50 million? £100 million?
How you can help:
Consider donating your unwanted prescription glasses. Take them along to SpecSavers, 146 Friar Street Reading RG1 1EX who have a Lions collection box. Your help is much appreciated.
Together we can bring hope to many families in the developing world who have been blighted by loss of sight.
Reading Lions Charity no: 1126848
Registered Charity no: 1126848
