While Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind and Greensboro Industries of the Blind are creating jobs for people with visual limitations, Dean Vavra and his colleagues are helping people regain vision — and in many cases return to work.
As CEO of Winston-Salem’s Miracles in Sight, Vavra leads the second-largest of about 75 eye banks in the U.S., a shrinking fraternity of organizations involved in corneal transplants. The Winston-Salem-based nonprofit had about $10 million in revenues last year, and today employs 91 people, 80 of them in Winston-Salem and 11 in South Carolina.
Miracles In Sight donated $150,000 to Industries for the Blind to buy two school buses. The buses will be used to transport nearly 100 blind or visually impaired children from Kindergarten through 12 grade to Tracy’s Little Red Schoolhouse for after-school and summer camp activities. Miracles in Sight has given more than $1 million to Industries for the Blind as part of its philanthropy.
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines proclaimed March 2016 Eye Donation Month in a proclamation issued to Miracles In Sight as one of the largest eye banks in the U.S.
Miracles In Sight is privileged to work with caring organizations around the world. Recently, our global outreach was with PASHA in Tajikistan. PASHA brings together individuals around the world with various areas of expertise to work on local and global health issues. Their Director, Dr. Ali Lotfizadeh, reached out to express their gratitude to Miracles In Sight…
“I am writing to thank you for the 3 corneas that your eye bank generously donated to our project. As Sherwin may have explained, Tajikistan is a very poor country with no eye bank and many patients in dire need of corneal transplantation. The only source for available corneas is donations through foreign eye banks like yours. We are also interested in exploring ways in which we could work with you in the future to send corneas to Tajikistan on a semi regular basis as there are several hundred patients awaiting transplantation at the current moment.”
We look forward to working with PASHA in the very near future and providing the gift of sight to those in need all over the world. You can learn more about this caring organization through their website, www.pasha4health.org.
