137 residents screened, 100 receive recycled eyeglasses
Apple Valley, Calif. (High Desert News Online) — A free eye-screening program held Aug. 22 provided vision services for more than 130 High Desert residents through a collaboration between the Apple Valley Unified School District, Apple Valley Sunrise Lions Club and California Lions Friends in Sight. The collaboration continues to grow in the effort to offer affordable eye care to families and individuals.
The vision services were provided between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at the AVUSD Educational Support Center, located at 12555 Navajo Road, and a total of 137 people were screened. One hundred of the 137 patients walked away with a usable pair of recycled eyeglasses, and 42 of the 137 screened were under 18.
Those seeking vision services at the screening did so based on a first-come, first-served basis, and were not limited to students or families of students within the AVUSD district.
Participants had a chance to talk with a licensed optometrist about any eye-related issues and be examined for a proper fit in terms of prescription glasses. Those who qualified for a pair of recycled eyeglasses left with a pair of glasses at no cost to them.
The eye-screening program is an attempt to address a basic health issue that can affect all areas of people’s lives. Vision problems that can go unnoticed can lead to difficulty reading and understanding instructions given in the classroom or elsewhere, and adults with vision problems may also find it difficult to do work and live daily life without corrective lenses.
One of Lions Clubs International’s long-standing goals of service has been offering vision programs to communities. According to the organization, it has been fighting vision impairment and blindness for more than 90 years. Lions Clubs support vision screenings, youth screening programs and eyeglass-recycling programs globally.
According to Lions International, early detection and access to corrective glasses can prevent many cases of visual impairments.
Large group of volunteers across Southern California
The Apple Valley screening relied on a network of volunteers coming from throughout Southern California.
Among those volunteers were Lions representatives from Apple Valley Sunrise, Spring Valley Lake, Jurupa Valley, LA Host, Boron, Bloomington, Colton, Greater Palm Springs, Yucaipa Valley, Calimesa Breakfast and San Jacinto Lions clubs.
Volunteers from AVUSD staff and the greater community also assisted in the screening.
Additionally, volunteers and students associated with the Medical and Health Science Technology, or MAHST, academy program at Apple Valley High School volunteered for the event as well. The MAHST Academy is part of the Career Technical Education program offered by AVHS, which allows the students to pursue potential medical careers while developing professional skills. Currently, AVHS offers a wide variety of CTE pathways in health care, skilled trades, agriculture, manufacturing and other fields.
It allows students to participate in health-related activities and gain experience in the field and learn about organization of medical services outside of classroom settings.
Recycled eyeglasses provide second life to donated prescription eyewear
The prescription glasses given to participants in the screening are the result of a larger Lions’ tradition of collecting donated eyewear, sorting the usable pairs and redistributing them through vision programs.
At the Lions recycling center, the donated glasses are sorted and determined whether they can be used for further distribution or not. Those glasses that can be reused are inventoried for distribution at vision programs and service missions. Those glasses that cannot be reused anymore can be recycled instead of being thrown away.
The process allows organizations providing vision services to give away glasses to those in need without the necessity to manufacture glasses anew.
California Lions Friends in Sight has been providing eyeglass-recycling services for over 15 years.
According to the organization, California Lions Friends in Sight dates back to July 2010 when volunteers of Friends in Sight and the former Friends Across the Border organizations started a vision screening program for those in need of vision services in Southern California and northern Mexico.
Since then, the program of Friends in Sight has grown to be the organization conducting up to 33 vision screenings per year prior to the pandemic, according to the organization. It served more than 12,000 people annually before the pandemic disrupted community screenings. Friends in Sight identified more than 6,500 cases of diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration.
Apple Valley Sunrise Lions Club has been mentioned among the supporters of California Lions Friends in Sight organization during the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Partnership has grown since 2025 screening
This year’s screening program is continued from the partnership between AVUSD and Lions organizations that got visible during the screening in Apple Valley in August 2025.
Back in 2025, the event attracted 243 participants in a course of approximately five hours. Ninety of the participants were age 18 or younger, and 173 pairs of recycled eyeglasses were handed over to the participants. Additionally, 77 people received their first ever pair of eyeglasses at the event.
This partnership continued into 2026. According to the AVUSD reporting, cited in Victorville Daily Press, in March 2026, AVUSD and Lions conducted another vision screening, and they collaborated in several more projects, including community health and resource fairs and International Children’s Day projects. Apple Valley Sunrise Lions Club also donated a bench made out of recycled materials to AVUSD as a token of appreciation of the partnership.
It means that the current vision screening event should be viewed in the context of a larger community health effort, not just a stand-alone event.
The AVUSD Educational Support Center has been acting as a place where such outreach happens frequently. AVUSD maintains a Family Center at the Navajo Road property where families from throughout the district and surrounding area can visit. At the same time, the property is used for food distribution services and other family services during the school year.
Apple Valley schools have been part of the community for many decades
The partnership fits into a much longer history of Apple Valley schools acting as a gathering place for the community.
Education in Apple Valley began long before the formation of both the modern town government and the AVUSD school district.
According to town historical records, there existed a school in Apple Valley even before the town government was formed. The first school was located in the area of Deep Creek and Rock Springs roads and required only few students for opening. In 1913, it was moved to the area of Deep Creek and Bear Valley roads.
During the 1930s, with assistance from the Works Progress Administration, residents and the Apple Valley Grange contributed in building additions to the school building, which included kitchen, meeting hall and stage that were used by both students and other organizations of the community.
Once again, in 1950, the building was relocated to Yucca Loma Road. Post-WWII rapid growth of the population of the High Desert area created a necessity for building new schools in Apple Valley.
Modern AVUSD formed as a result of the school unification process happening in the High Desert region in 1980s. According to the state environmental record of 1986, there were plans to create new unified school districts for Apple Valley, Hesperia and Lucerne Valley from existing elementary districts and portions of the regional high school district. By fall 1987, campuses like Desert Knolls School already operated under the AVUSD jurisdiction.
Currently, the district provides education from preschool to high school along with adult education. AVUSD pays special attention to college and career readiness with such programs as Advanced Placement, AVID, concurrent enrollment and career technical education programs in such fields as health care, engineering, construction, hospitality and digital media.
Vision care ties health and education
Vision care is directly tied to education, because a lot of classroom activities depend on the students’ vision.
Community events can also reach those people who fall out of the reach of health services provided by the school system, including parents, grandparents, preschool siblings and other residents.
It was especially visible on Aug. 22: of the 137 patients, 42 of them were minors, and most of those getting their vision checked were adults.
Lions Clubs International encourages clubs to cooperate with schools, health professionals and community organizations in order to conduct vision screenings for both children and adults. Lions’ KidSight program starts examining children as early as six months of age, and some Lions programs are dedicated to vision care of adults and people with limited access to such services.
For Apple Valley, it demonstrated how school district, local service organization, health professionals and volunteers from all over Southern California can use existing infrastructure and donated resources to provide direct assistance to people in the community.
In only four hours, 137 people received vision examination, and almost three-quarters of them left the Educational Support Center with glasses.
For 100 people from the High Desert, it resulted in a practical solution – they visited to get their vision problems addressed and got away with glasses they could immediately start using.
