Vision Care for Needy Children

Dear Donors,

Thank you Global Giving donors for your generous support this year! Several donors have set up recurring donations and we appreciate this ongoing support. Thank you, too, for helping us continue to provide vision and hearing care for all eligible children requesting our help!! As we mentioned in last year’s report, in addition to meeting our goal the KEX Kids Fund was selected to receive a National Outstanding Service Award from the NAB Education Foundation for Service to Children presented in Washington DC on June 16, 2015!! In addition to this National Award, the KEX Kids Fund received local recognition by the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation as their Partner of the Year at their Gala Award Dinner on October 3, 2015. The award was presented by Dr. Eric Jones, Legacy Health Systems. Thank you again for your help to make this recognition possible! 

Please note that May 7^, 2016 was the date for the First Annual Vision Fun Run in the Portland area – created by one of our local children to benefit the KEX Kids Fund. More details are available at www.visionfunrun.com 

So far this year your support helped us raise $29,530.36 to provide both hearing and vision care for needy children in Oregon and SW Washington for our 2016 program. Most of our operating expenses for 2016 are pledged and collected during our annual Thanksgiving Fundraiser. In November 2015, we have received $117,082 to be used for our $140,000 budget for 2016. We are very pleased with this support as the radio time for the fundraiser included only the four morning broadcasts and not the two afternoon commuting time broadcasts which have historically brought in $15,000 to $20,000 in pledges. Our funds are kept in one account and are used for both of our Hearing and Vision Care programs. 

Vision Care Program Services expenses in 2015 were $56,028. In 2015, we processed requests for vision care for 774 children. These KEX Kids Fund children received vision care services valued at over $150,000. So far in 2016, our vision care expenses are $33,880 and we have provided vision care for 315 children. This number exceeds the number of vision care children served in 2015 by over 200 children! We continue to be able to provide vision care services to all qualified children who request our help and have no other options for vision care. Our contact at the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation (OLSHF), Kerith Vance, receives Thank You notes form children receiving KEX Kids Fund vision care which we will attach to this report when available. 

We continue to be concerned about reaching children who have vision problems and whose families qualify for our help (on free or reduced-price lunch programs). School districts in Oregon depend upon the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation to provide vision screening for their students. Funding this program is becoming a challenge and the KEX Kids Fund Board is expanding our partnership with OLSHF to help them continue to provide screening to districts without the resources to fund the screening program. In response to a proposal from OLSHF, at our July board meeting, we voted to contribute $25,000 to OLSHF to help them provide the Mobile Health Screening Program (MHSP) to districts that lack local resources to share in the cost of providing this service to their students. In 2015, OLSHF provided screening in 360 schools. About 130,000 children were screened resulting in referrals for over 11,000 children for additional vision care. 

In addition to assistance with the OLSHF’s vision screening program, at our April 2016 board meeting we voted to contribute $9000 to OLSHF’s Optical Finishing Lab project to assemble children’s frame display kits for our providers to use with their children to select high quality low cost eyeglasses at considerable savings. The KEX Kids Fund will pay OLSHF LEAP program directly for eyeglasses for our children. 

Thank you again for helping us to bring sight to needy children in Oregon and SW Washington.

• Ryder's Story (PDF)
  
• Kevin's Story (PDF)