Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless

My guest this week is Cheryl Stakes.  She is the Program Direction at Vision is Priceless in Jacksonville, FL where they work each and every day to improve the visual health of children and adults in Northeast Florida.  The impact of the work they do in the community truly is priceless, and the value to the people they help is immeasurable. 

What if you were a child that never had an eye exam, and you didn't even know that the blur you see in front of you isn't the same as what the other kids in your class see.  Think about being an adult that has difficulty seeing the road to drive to work or seeing a computer screen.  They are all real problems that Vision is Priceless is working to solve each and every day for people in need of their services.  

Transcript

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Jesse Stakes: hey? Everybody! Welcome to making sense of it all. My guest to day is Cheryl stakes. She's the program director for vision is priceless cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Hi, Jessie, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here today. So, Cheryl, tell me what vision is priceless does for the community. In Jacksonville, Florida.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So vision is priceless, is a Jacksonville nonprofit, and we provide vision screenings, eye exams, glasses, specialty care, and sometimes even surgery to children and adults in the North Florida area.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: It's a lot.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: No, it's not a lot yet.

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Jesse Stakes: We're gonna redo that

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: I feel like I'm

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Jesse Stakes: hey! Everybody! Welcome to making sense of it all with Jesse Stakes.

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Jesse Stakes: So today my guest is Cheryl stakes. She is the program director for vision is priceless in Jacksonville, Florida. Cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Hi, Jessie, good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

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Jesse Stakes: so tell my audience a little bit about vision is priceless. What is it that you guys do for the community?

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So vision is priceless. Is a Jacksonville nonprofit that provides vision services to those in the in need. In northeast Florida

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: we actually provide free vision screenings, eye exams, glasses, follow up specialty, care, and sometimes even surgery to people in our area.

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Jesse Stakes: That's a lot. Did you guys start by doing all of that? Or did it start smaller? How did what did it look like when it when it first came about.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So the agency was actually founded in 1 96

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in northeast Florida, by a group of volunteers, and I care professionals who are dedicated to providing access for free vision screenings and eye care.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: The individuals had previously served on the board of directors of the northeast Region

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Jesse Stakes: chapter prevent Blindness chapter. At this point, in 1,996, they decided that they wanted to break away from the prevent blindness. Organization.

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Jesse Stakes: Cheryl, could you share from my audience what vision is priceless does in the Jacksonville community?

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Sure, so vision is priceless. Is a Jacksonville nonprofit that provides free vision screenings, eye exams glasses. Follow up specialty care when needed, and sometimes even surgery to children and adults in the northeast area.

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Jesse Stakes: That's wonderful. Before we jump into the the program and talking about the program, I'd love to step back for a second and talk about you is that is that fair?

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Okay, sure.

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Jesse Stakes: So tell me what was your first job when you got out of school.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So my first professional job was actually in a bank. I worked as a as a customer service agent in a bank in in New Jersey. And II like that job. I especially enjoy the customer aspect part of it. But I kinda knew right away that wasn't really what I wanted to do. Long term wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But I didn't think I wanted to be a banker.

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Jesse Stakes: Yeah, I'd say, that's a lot different than working in a nonprofit. Huh? So when you got out of banking, or when you decided that wasn't for you, did you? Did you always work in nonprofits? Was it? Was it something that you wanted to do, or how did how did you? I guess I'm what I'm asking is, how did you get to be working in in the nonprofit sector.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So when I when I moved to Jacksonville, I went to work for the Y.M.C.A. And it's

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: was kind of just a a position that was available. It looked interesting to me. I took it, and I honestly fell in love with it. I worked for the Y.M.C.A. For almost 15 years in a lot of different capacities. And

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: I just I realized that what fulfilled me as a person, what really energized me was to be able to give back to the community to do things in the community for others. The roles that I held in the organization, we're typically helping people with financial assistance, getting kids into summer camp and sports and different things that

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: they wouldn't have been able to do in another in another location. So I was always excited about going to work, and really liked what I did. And I knew then that that nonprofit was probably gonna be for me.

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Jesse Stakes: I think that's really amazing. So what made you choose to get involved with vision is priceless.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: I had actually resigned from the Y.M.C.A. A few years earlier because my mother was sick with cancer, and I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home during that time and and spend a lot of time with her and kinda help my dad with caring for her after she passed. It was a very difficult time for me.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: and I thought that maybe getting involved and going back to work. Doing something would would help me kind of get through that period of time. So I saw the position available at vision is priceless. It was interesting to me. So I applied, and I started, and

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: really where where it started, and I've been there this November will actually be 10 years. So it's been a long time.

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Jesse Stakes: So if you don't mind, I you know I appreciate you sharing that about you, and I'd love to learn more about vision as priceless, and share with my audience. How you know, how did the how did the agency get started in Jacksonville?

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So before vision is priceless, came into play or came into being in 1996, before that it was actually

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: an organization or a chapter of prevent blindness here in Jacksonville. So the the Board of Directors

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: of the Prevent Blindness Chapter decided that there was a huge need in Jacksonville for our services, and they kind of wanted to keep the funding and and all of the services local. So they broke away from prevent blindness, and a visionist priceless was was formed my, of course I wasn't around at that time. My understanding is that

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: one day it was prevent blindness, and the very next day it was vision is priceless to prevent blindness. Agency came in and took the furniture and took took what was theirs, and we

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: and and VIP. Was just born, and hath gone from there.

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Jesse Stakes: That's wonderful. I think it's I mean, and they've you guys have done a tremendous amount of good for the community. And I think that the organization itself looks far different today than what it looked like when it first started. Yes.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: absolutely. I think it. I think in its origin, in its core. It was based on vision screening, which is a really important thing.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: for, especially for for kids. We, our agency still today provides a close to 35,000 vision screenings for children in schools in the 5 county area. Now, we focus our efforts on schools where vision screening isn't already being provided by another agency. So we screen kids in private schools in religious schools, we do charter schools, free schools. Daycare

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: vision screening is a huge tool to alert families that a child is suffering from a vision problem. One in 4 students will suffer, suffer from some type of vision issue, and what I like to say is, if you, if you can't see, you can't, can't read, you can't learn. It just makes education so difficult. However, it is still today one of the least

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: looked at

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: forms of preventative care. Parents take their children to the pediatrician for preventative care. We go see a dentist. But going to see an eye doctor just isn't something that people always think about. So the screenings are super important in that

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: in that area, because it alerts families to the fact that there could be something going on

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Jesse Stakes: well and just for my audience. As far as I know, it's probably a pretty basic thing. But but what is a vision screening like? So if they're, you know, if they're thinking, people probably think they know. But they may not know exactly what it is.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So the way that we do vision screenings now, are we utilize an instrument based tool? Ours is the

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: spot photovision screener. It kinda looks like a polaroid camera. Almost. It's got some. Whoever invented it was really smart because they put little flashing lights in it, and it chirps like a bird. So you get the kids attention really quick. It takes about 2 s to screen, and that instrument can can determine whether the child has a refractive error, or if there is an issue with amblyopia for business, if they have a wandering, you know an eye

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: that's moving in a in a direction that it shouldn't be going. So it again is just a screening tool that is just a tool that alerts us, that there could possibly be a problem. And you need to take your child to an eye, doctor, just to have this looked at, to have it checked out. We, the child in need of a full, comprehensive eye. Exam.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless:  that that screening. We also screen the adult side of the program. I I'll get into the adults in a minute sticking with the kids.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: those screenings basically have led us to the growth that we have had the huge growth that we've had in our children's side of our program. It's called, we call it our Site and Schools Program. But we have gone year after year after year to provide these vision screenings with kids. And what we noticed is that kids that are being screened

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: and failing. The vision screenings were failing repeatedly. One year. The next year the next year. So these are whole school years that are going by, where the kids aren't seeing properly. They're struggling in class, but never receiving

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: the the care that they need never coming back with a pair of glasses. So this was not okay to us. We were like, Okay, this is great. We're providing the screening tool. We're alerting people. These children need help, but they're not getting the help that they need. Why, so, of course, there was a lot of research and a lot of

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: looking into why these things were happening. And really, what was determined was that there were just a a good proportion of the students who were just not

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: able to get the care that they need, for whatever reason that was, whether it was there was no insurance in the family. There was a a

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: barrier with transportation. There were just

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: there were just things that kept them from getting what they needed. So rather than

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Ignoring that we decided we needed to do something about that. And that's kind of where our our site in schools program was actually born. Because what we do is, take the portable. We take a portable vision equipment into classrooms. Now set it up and have an optometrist who works with us. Come in, and we give full dilated eye exams right inside of the school.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: This alleviates almost every barrier that child would actually have for getting an eye exam. All the exams are free, they're free to the families, free to the school. Everything is obviously not free. We have a lot of really generous founders in the community that help us do this.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: But we also provide the students with the glasses that they need at no charge for for them. This program

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: has had really, you know, was in the in the works for a while, but really kicked off from 2020, which was interesting because that was an interesting time, so it was small. We did a little, and it has grown and grown. Last school year. We did over 2,500 I exams in schools for children.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless:  And now we have just purchased our very first mobile eye clinic our agency.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Our agency purchased a sprinter van, and it is

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: currently, we've only had it for a couple of weeks, and we are currently in the process of getting it wrapped. So hopefully, people see it around town with the big vision, priceless. But now we are really

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: kind of in the driver seat, so to speak, with coming up to the to the school. We can just park right in front of a school in a bus loop. The students can come out to the van that the aisleane is inside will give the kids their eye exams. They go right back to class. It alleviates, you know, any insurance barrier, any parents who have to work and can't get out of school. It helps with transportation issues. It helps with

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: students missing class time. I mean.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: if you think about, even if if there was no issue. A parent has to come to school. Cha. Sign a child out. Take them to the doctors, wait for their appointment. Time, Con, you know. Come back. Sometimes kids miss a half a day or whole day of school. The students that we see missed 30 min of class. So and once the glasses are are, you know the glasses are returned to the school for the student also, so there's nothing that they have to do.

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Jesse Stakes: II know that we probably can't speak in specifics about this. But have you guys seen, you know, an improvement in those kids like, you know, since you started doing this, have any of the schools come back to you anecdotally and told you that these children are having, you know, improved

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Jesse Stakes: scores, improved grades, and improved, you know attitude towards school because they are able to see now

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: so many, so many. It's it's actually amazing. Of course, you know, being a nonprofit er, because everything that we do is grant funded. There are always there's always reporting and things that you you have to do. So we did set up a survey system, so that we reached out to the schools. We would wait about

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: between 6 and 12 weeks. After the students receive their glasses to to go back to the administrators and ask, Have you seen any changes, changes, changes and behavior changes and and great, you know, grades changes in participation. And

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: we started just hoping that we would get some type of response, because getting responses isn't isn't always easy. But the response that we have gotten has been overwhelming. As a matter of fact, last year

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: not one of the schools that participated in our program did not respond positively to us. Everyone responded, and everyone responded overwhelmingly, positively. We have stories about students, the younger students especially, who are just learning to read, who were shy and would sit in the back of a classroom who now can't wait to to get a turn to read to the class. We've heard about older students who have

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: test it, you know, testing for

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: state test who their scores come back better than they were, some even who had had ieps and needed extra time. And now they're just on regular schedule, like the the other students in their class. They don't even need the extra time. We've seen a lot of older students, those those get me

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: sometimes, because these are kids who have gone for years through school and have really gotten behind. And and it it doesn't have anything to do with their ability to achieve academically ahead everything to do with the fact that they just couldn't see

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Jesse Stakes: well. And it's crazy. Because if if a kid if a kid broke their arm, or if a kid had, you know, something that was causing them pain. Then they then they complained to their parents, and they say my arm hurts or my leg hurts, or whatever it is. But when you, if you've had a progressive.

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Jesse Stakes: you know, I don't wanna call it's not necessarily a disease. But but you know, if your if your eyes aren't working properly, you don't know that they're working, that they're not working properly. It's something that you're born with, or it's something that it's just normal to you. So for it's very difficult for somebody to communicate about something that is just, you know, it just feels like regular life to you. So that's I think it's absolutely amazing that you guys are being so proactive with these kids, and and really taking the approach of identify, you know, making sure that there isn't a problem with all of them

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that are in the schools that way that the you identify the ones that do have it. And hopefully it improves their life

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Jesse Stakes: exponentially. Moving forward from that point on. This is something that, you know, they didn't even know was a problem that is now taken care of.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: absolutely abs, absolutely. And it and it is. It does seem that simple, and and it is that simple, but it but it's not like it is. It has been such

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: a a large problem in our school system, and just just the overwhelming request for our services proves how

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: important and how big of a need there is into the in the community. For this. As I said, we really got started with this in 2020, and II believe we did about 350 eye exams that year. Now it's hard to compare. It's not really comparing apples to apples, because that was a weird time, and not everybody was even at school. But to to think that in

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: 3 years we went from 300 people to or 300 student exams to 2,500 student exams is just.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: it's just huge. And the honest truth is, we have more and more schools, more and more students requesting our services all of the time. So

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: it's it's definitely something that's important, I think, to do in the community.

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Jesse Stakes: no doubt. No doubt. So let's let's switch gears for a second. I know that everyone always likes to talk about kids. Everyone you know it always. It always affects people, you know, emotionally when you talk about children. But you guys do a tremendous amount for the adults in our community as well.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Yes, we absolutely do. We have a whole adult side of our program. So we also provide vision screenings to adults. With the adult side of the program. The numbers are smaller as far as screening wise. I think we screen about 3,500 adults each year. Some of that is because by the time a person is an adult, they typically know

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: whether or not their vision is is impaired. So whereas, you know, we screen 35,000 children each year. There's about a 10 to 12% referral rate. So about 10 to 12% of those kids actually need glasses. In the adult side of the program. We screen 3,500 adults. But about 97% of the adults that we screen actually need.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Ha! I care because they? They know how they need it. That's why they're coming to us. So we provide our screenings that in the in the community, at church events, at healthcare events, at other social service.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: agencies who are targeted the same population that we that we serve. We will screen anyone. So sometimes in in community events. People come and they, you know, they get screened, and they're like, Oh, you should, you know we let them know you should go and get your eyes checked. We have free reading glasses that we can give out in the community.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: But if if an adult comes to us, has a vision screening, and they have an income that is at or below 200% of the Federal poverty guideline, and they have no insurance that covers vision, then we can also work with that patient to get them a free eye exam, and a free pair of glasses. Also, if if they need that all of those services are

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: made possible by the the extremely generous Vision care community in Jacksonville. So there are a lot of doctors, vision doctors in Jacksonville willing to work with us, some who will see our clients, our patients, right in their office.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: just as another patient. But of course there's no charge for that service.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: and then we also have a clinic in Arlington.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: We have a an extremely good working relationship with the Arlington Lions Club, and if you know anything about the Lions Club. You know that their main focus, or one of their main focus is vision. And so there are some really amazing guys over there in Arlington who have a clinic

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: full eyelaine, all of the necessary equipment, everything that you need, and a building that's like a doctor's office, and we go over my myself and my team, go to the doctor's

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: or go to our

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: no, we go to Arlington at least once a week, sometimes more, depending on how many volunteer doctors we can find and set up, set up for the for the morning afternoon. It's usually about a 4 h period where a volunteer doctor will come in and provide free eye exams for our clients. We typically can see anywhere between 10 and

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: 20 patients during that timeframe, and they are able to choose choose frames, get glasses and anything else they need.

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Jesse Stakes: We are absolutely wonderful.

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Jesse Stakes: You guys also participate. And I know you guys have another physician or a couple of physicians that help with the gift of site. Yes.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: we do. Yes, we do. We have

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: hold on. Can you stop? Pause?

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Jesse Stakes: So I think that's really great. Your agency focuses on screenings and making sure that people have the glasses that they need. But what happens when somebody has a deeper problem or thing are are more of an issue that needs to be addressed with their site.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So funny you should say that because we did learn over time with with more and more services that we delivered, that there are always gonna be a certain percentage of folks that the optometrists will see, or or even an ophthalmologist will see them for an eye exam, and then they determine that they have a bigger problem going on. We do have an a network or referral system. For that. We have some of

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: phenomenal ophthalmologists in our community who are willing to see some of our patients for other issues, bigger issues. And then we also have a process in which we can help people get connected with us, health or another, you know agency. Sometimes we help them connect with marketplace insurance or a a process for them to get the care that we need. So we never stop. We never, you know, we we we are very

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: adamant about. If someone comes to us and they need more than glasses to make sure that they have an avenue to get the care that they need.

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Jesse Stakes: I that's, I think that's absolutely amazing. So what do you see? As the greatest challenge for Vip moving forward, for for the provision is priceless, you know, and like from here. Wha what are the challenges that you guys need to rise up and meet.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So I what I what I feel like from the Brian. The program side of it is that the need in Jacksonville just keeps growing. The population keeps growing, and the more people there are, the more need for our services. We get requests all of the time for schools for us to come in and do the site school services. We also have lots of adults

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: in our program meeting eye exams. It's really just going to be recruiting more vision professionals in our community willing to to help us to give us a few hours on a Saturday, or see a few patients in their office. And then

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: our hope is that once we're proficient with our new sprinter van we may even be able to to get to a point where we have 2 clinics running each day. Where right now we have, you know, our team in schools every every school day, and we're hoping to be able to double that in the next. You know, in the next few years the need is definitely here in the community. So it's just gonna be

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: a matter of funding. That's what I was. Gonna say, I was thinking, with all of those additional services you probably are. Gonna have a a a greater demand for funding or a greater demand for for donations and and fundraising that come to the organization

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: absolutely. The our agency is a very strong financial is very strong. Financially. We have an executive director who's done in a tremendous job in the time that she's been with us. Fiscally, and we are in a good place, but expansion in a nonprofit definitely comes with additional funding. So we are always looking at different opportunities. We have a pretty diversified funding.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: So we feel comfortable being able to offer the services that we do. And and we have ways of making sure that we get everything done that we have promised.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: but we also are always looking for additional funding to grow, to expand.

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Jesse Stakes: I gotta imagine, also, with the with the additional services. Additional people that need to be seen. It does probably doesn't hurt to have more doctors volunteering their time either.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: No, anybody, any doctor, if anybody, hears this and wants to to give a helping hand. That would be wonderful. It's a it's a fairly simple process. II think, if if you could give a few minutes and talk to us, we could kind of or talk. I would be happy to talk to them, give them an idea about what we do, but we would love to have the help of of anybody that was willing. So yes, excellent.

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Jesse Stakes: So if people want to learn more, and if they want to get involved with your organization, what's the best way for them to contact you guys

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: the absolute best way to contact us is through our website. It's just vision is priceless.org. If you go to our website, you can see all about us what we do. Our history. You can look at our our reach. You know what we are doing in the community. If you are in need of services, you can contact us, and we can

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: reach you that way to provide services. If you're in the position that you could support our services, you can do that through the website, too. So please.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: And if you just want more information about what we're doing, I feel like we're really cool agency. That does a whole lot in Jacksonville. We're very small.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: if if you think about the amount of lives that we touch, our agency has 8 full time employees and 5 parts employees. So we are a very small agency that does a whole lot in the community. So we're proud of that. And if you just want to come and take a look at and and see what we do. We would. We'd love that

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Jesse Stakes: excellent cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate what you guys do in the Jacksonville community, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

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Cheryl Stakes - Vision is Priceless: Thanks, Jessie.