Estero man finds niche collecting eyeglasses for poor

The eyeglasses Len Lambert has collected in a small corner of his Estero garage come in all colors.

All shapes. All sizes. All prescriptions.

You name the frame, Lambert could probably find it by rifling one of the plastic grocery bags. They hold the dozens of lenses that local residents have deemed no longer useful and dropped off at collection sites throughout south Lee County.

“I have had people come up to me at church and say, ‘I hear you collect glasses,’¤” Lambert said with a laugh.

Collect, he does.

Last year, Lambert and the Estero/South Fort Myers Lions Club gathered nearly 3,000 pairs of eyeglasses from 15 different sites throughout Lee County.

The glasses are collected at local grocery stores and restaurants in small cardboard and wooden boxes labeled in red bold letters: “Your Unwanted Glasses Will Help Someone See Better.”

The boxes represent a tradition that dates back to 1994, when the Association of Lions Clubs started a recycling program to provide for people in developing countries who suffer from poor vision and can’t afford eyeglasses.

More than 5 million pairs were distributed last year, according to information provided on the Association of Lions Club Web site. An estimated 33,000 of those were collected by the Estero/South Fort Myers Lions Club and Bonita Springs Lions Club.

About 300 to 400 of those pairs were handed out at a free eye clinic in Immokalee, said Ann Zinser, secretary of the Bonita Springs Lions Club.

Lambert empties his collection boxes every two to three weeks with help from Lions Club volunteers who meet in his garage about four times a year to sort through the spectacles.

The eyeglasses are separated into categories that range from sunglasses to reading glasses to prescription bifocals, then boxed and shipped to a Lions Club post in Ocoee, west of Orlando. There they are cleaned, repaired and classified by prescription. The glasses are bagged and labeled after they are processed through a computer system that records optical information.

A bulk of the glasses are distributed by missionaries who fill out applications, Lambert said.

“For the most part the glasses get used outside the United States,” Lambert said. “That’s where the most need is.”

Lambert saw the process for the first time last month. It changed the way he thought about the Lions Club program he had always found “kind of boring.”

Going from grocery store to grocery store to pick up discarded eyeglasses was one thing. Seeing walls lined with trays of lenses that will help millions of people who couldn’t afford to improve their sight was another thing entirely.

“It was amazing,” Lambert said.

The Estero resident now travels with extra collection boxes in the trunk of his car just in case he runs into a business or library that doesn’t already have a designated site. He most recently convinced his insurance agency to include a collection box at its office on Sanibel Boulevard.

“I suspect we’ll get 5,000 this year,” he said, “now that we’ve stepped it up a little bit.”

The Estero/South Fort Myers Lions Club operates with 23 members and is small when compared to the Bonita Springs Lions Club, which has 130 members and brought in 30,000 of the 33,000 eyeglasses collected in south Lee County last year.

But what they lack in numbers, Lambert tries to make up for in persistence.

Collection sites now include five Publix grocery stores, a Sunshine Ace Hardware in south Fort Myers, a Haney’s Café in San Carlos Park, the Miromar Outlet Mall, a Colonial Bank on Corkscrew Road in Estero, the South County Regional Library, the Karl Drews Community Center and Three Oaks Elementary School.

“We don’t have much money. It’s not like we can give out scholarships to people for $10,000 and $20,000,” Lambert said. “But this is a way we know we’re helping people.”