College senior Audrey Lustig knows it doesn't take an optometrist to give hundreds of kids eye exams.
Lustig is the president of the Penn chapter of Unite for Sight, an international organization that helps provide glasses and vision screenings for people who cannot afford them.
The group performs vision screenings at schools, community centers and soup kitchens in Philadelphia.
"I felt that a lot of students would really like it because it's very concrete," Lustig said. "You go to a school, you do a vision screening, you get results and help kids."
The group often conducts vision tests at Sayre Middle School in West Philadelphia, where members screen over 400 students a semester. They have been going to Sayre since last spring.
"We have a really good relationship with them. They have a lot of programs through Penn there already, so it's been really easy for us to start screening," Lustig said.
In order to conduct screenings, each volunteer takes a mandatory online course teaching general information about eye health, and returning members help teach new ones the screening procedures.
Volunteers encourage those who have vision below 20/40 to get glasses and inform them how to gain access to health care.
For Lustig, starting a chapter at Penn was a clear choice.
She discovered the organization through a friend who attended Rush Medical School in Chicago.
"A lot of Universities had chapters, and I realized that Penn didn't have one," Lustig said. "It didn't make a lot of sense to me because it seemed like a really good program and it seemed like Penn would really benefit from having one."
She decided to found the Penn chapter at the end of her sophomore year, researching and recruiting students during the summer.
When the year started, she had six members. Next year, the board will have seven members.
Lustig also was able to find a fourth-year medical student who provided the group with charts and trained members to do vision tests.
Although she is graduating this year, Lustig hopes to continue working at a Unite for Sight chapter at whatever graduate school she attends.
She plans to pursue an advanced degree in cognitive neuroscience.
"I'm glad [it's] started here" at Penn, Lustig said. "I think it will carry on for a while, and it's just going to keep growing here, which makes me happy."
