National Service News: Service Gives Us Many Reasons to be Thankful

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Impact America AmeriCorps members with the Focus First program helped save Elise's eyesight.

 

Service Gives Us Many Reasons to be Thankful

On Thursday, our nation will celebrate Thanksgiving, a time when we pause to gather with friends and family to reflect on the many reasons we have to feel thankful. 

This week's National Service News features just a fraction of the stories that show how valuable our AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs are to the communities they serve across the nation.

Some of them have an impact that can be measured on a grand scale (like our disaster recovery efforts), but others are more personal stories that make a big difference for someone in need. And we have a lot of reasons to feel grateful.

This is how we get to Elise's story. (She's the little girl pictured above.)

When Elise was about 1 1/2 years old, Impact America FocusFirst AmeriCorps members and volunteers from Florida State University visited her daycare center in Florida and took a photo of her eyes with a digital screening camera. The test immediately indicated that she had a potential vision problem.

Elise was referred to an ophthalmologist who was able to diagnose that she had a rare, degenerative eye disorder called Coats Disease.The disease is painless, but unless it is identified early and treated immediately, Coats Disease almost always results in blindness and sometimes removal of the affected eye. 

Elise is now under the care of an eye doctor who is treating her disease. They believe they will be able to preserve her eye and her sight, all because of the early detection and referral made possible by the early screening initiative.

Studies show the value of identifying vision problems in children at ages 2, 3 or 4 - before they start school. But it is difficult to reach groups of young children in large numbers, especially in large rural states across the south.

Impact America's FocusFirst program provides free vision screenings and follow-up care for more than 86,000 children each year in six states, making it the largest early vision care initiative in the country. 

These vision screenings have identified more than 44,000 children with vision issues, ranging from cataracts to amblyopia (or lazy eye) to nearsightedness and farsightedness. All of these conditions can seriously impair a child's sight during the crucial, formative years as they are learning their letters and starting to read.

This is an amazing story and we are happy that Elise is making progress. 

Which gives us one more reason to be thankful. 

In service, 

CNCS Office of External Affairs

P.S. We thank Impact America for helping us share this story. You can learn more about Impact America AmeriCorps and Elise's story by watching the video here.

The Impact of National Service

Vanessa Moore (right) is an AmeriCorps VISTA member and Army veteran whose service is focused on improving the lives of her fellow veterans.


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Five military veterans went to Texas to help run Red Cross shelters after Hurricane Harvey struck.

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When you watch Madison retiree Fred Leidel pedal his bicycle toward the local elementary school on a frigid Wisconsin day, it doesn't surprise you to learn that his favorite book as a child was "The Little Engine That Could"--the one with the line, "I know I can, I know I can." Twice a week, Fred battles all types of weather on that bike so he can pedal over to Schenk Elementary School to read to kindergartners in Lindsay Snyder's classroom. She said, "It really shows true dedication for him to ride his bike, no matter if it's rain, sleet, snow, whatever it is. Unless it's a snow emergency, he makes it on his bike twice a week".

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 Foster Grandparent Fred Leidel helps a student in a Wisconsin classroom.