Page 5 - LGS Today Fall-Winter 2022

Out and About
Lions Gift of Sight loves to participate in community, national, and international events, both Lions and dona- tion related. Here is a sampling of LGS outreach since our last newsletter.
LGS staff were there to greet and educate the public at a booth in the University of Minnesota building at the State Fair. We made many great connections with visitors, including doctors, donor family members, corneal recipients, people with vision issues, and donation advocates.
After a 2-year hiatus, Lions Youth Exchange partici- pants returned to Lions Gift of Sight for their annual July tour. 21 students from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Mongolia, Norway, Po- land, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey were treated to Eye Banking 101 with demonstrations in cornea recovery, evaluation, and processing, education about research, and an overview on LGS and Lions.
The weather could not have been more beautiful for the 27th LifeSource Golf Classic at Majestic Oaks Golf Club in Ham Lake. LifeSource staff and friends were impeccable hosts, and Lions Gift of Sight provided a golfing foursome, sponsored a hole, and staffed an information table at the event. The tournament was originally started by Scandia Marine Lions Jim and Marilyn Opp to honor their daugh- ter Terri, who died awaiting a heart transplant.
In June, LGS participated in a mission trip through EyeLife, and contributed six corneas to the Basra Teaching Hospi- tal sight restoration program, a partnership of Turkish and Iraqi doctors. This mission saved the sight of 20 patients!
Special friends of Lions Gift of Sight, the Burnsville-Sav- age Lions Club, stopped by for a tour on September 26. This club has donated more than $36,000 to the eye bank of late, gifting LGS with a biological safety cabinet, recovery staff uniforms, ergonomic equipment for the lab, a Voice over Internet Protocol phone system for the donor coordination staff, and more! For their generosity and continuous support, the club was presented with an Eye Donation Champion plaque.
The Minnesota Lions Vision Foun- dation held its annual appreciation event, Thanksgiving for Vision, on Oc- tober 22. Symposium speakers included LGS Business Analyst Amber Benbow (Making a Difference with Data), Dr. Joshua Hou (Automated Software for Donor Cornea Evaluation), Dr. Glenn Lobo (Importance of Dietary Vitamin A Receptors for Visual Function) and LifeSource Communications Director Sarah Sonn (Better Together: Increas- ing Donor Registrations in Minnesota.) The lunch program featured two excel- lent speakers: donor family member Ronda Gowan and corneal recipient Maria Huerta-Lopez (pictured above).
Hospital Liaisons Mandy Duong and Lynn Balfour attended the Donate Life America Conference in Pitts- burgh, PA, soaking up knowledge, making valuable contacts, mingling with others in the donation field, and representing Lions Gift of Sight. They are pictured with other eye bankers who were in attendance. (Lynn is third from left, and Mandy is right front.)
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