Story and Photo Courtesy of Lion Dennis Hirtz, Lake Tomahawk Lions Club
This is the story of how a hard- working, small town Lake Tomahawk Lions Club, in northern Wisconsin rises to the challenge of service as Past International President Patti Hill has requested to help change our world.
Our Wisconsin Lions Foundation MD27 requested assistance with eyeglass recycling in our state in 1997. Our club responded to that call to service. The program director provided instructions in the proper procedure for recycling the glasses. The process involves many steps and multiple hours of volunteer time by our club.
The glasses are picked up from the recycling center in Rosholt, Wi. where the donated eyeglasses from all the clubs in the upper Midwest are stored. This is an eighty-mile trip from Lake Tomahawk, Wi. They are transported to our community center in Lake Tomahawk for processing.
Initially, for many years, the glasses were hand washed and dried to remove surface dirt and smudges, in order to prep for reading. We have an excess of 11,000 pairs of glasses to recycle. We are now fortunate to have a generous town restaurant owner, which allows us to use their commercial dish washing machine, which cleans and sterilizes the eyeglasses. A tedious two-day hand washing preparation has been reduced to about a two-hour process.
The sorting process according to type, men’s single, and bifocal lenses, ladies single, and bifocal lenses, children single, reading glasses, must be done before the lens prescription can be “read”.
We work in a team of three (3) Lions and use a Topcon CL-100 Computerized Lensmeter to evaluate the prescription of each pair of glasses. The person using the Lensmeter then reads the prescription and relays it to the next person on the team. That person transcribes the prescription onto a special plastic zip-lock bag and passes the glasses and the bag to the third team member who inserts and seals the glasses into the bag and keeps the count record. The sorted, catalogued and sealed bags are placed in the proper containers for shipment back to the Recycling center at Rosholt, Wi.
Our club recycles 11,000 to 12,000 pairs of glasses each year. They are processed during the months of January and February, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. During these two months, our club members donate about 450 hours of volunteer time each year on this project. You would think it would be hard to get the members to work that much, but in reality, we contact them once to set up the schedule at the beginning of January and our Lions generously fill in the time slots and make sure the schedule is completely covered with volunteer hours. The club members realize that we are improving the vision of every person who receives theses glasses, which are distributed on Lions mission throughout the world.
Since 1997 to February 2024 our Club has recycled 300,463 pairs of eyeglasses. We have improved the lives of more than a quarter million people, at no cost to us, other than our time. Not too bad as a “record of service” for a forty-member Club! The recycling center in Wisconsin and the other recycling centers in the USA, need help from all Clubs to continue this project. Please contact them to get started. Remember our motto; WE SERVE.
You can contact the Wisconsin Lions Foundation Project Director, Keith Mueller at 715-677-4969 or kmueller@wlf.info.