Helen Tambanillo, in her early 40s, had been suffering from an extreme case of nearsightedness. For all her life, she could not see clearly that when she heard last year of a vision mission group extending help to people like her, she sought the Maao,Bago City-based out for help.

She never, however, got to see the team. Because of her eye defect, she crossed the road without realizing that a motorcycle was heading her way. The accident caused her injuries that she had to be hospitalized for days.

About a year later, Helen finally got to see the team when it visited her home village, Tabunan early this month. “Although she came late, we accommodated her ahead of the others when le learned she was the one who got bumped while seeking us out,” said Ellen Weyrich, wife of Dr. James Weyrich, an eye specialist amd the EyeCare WeCare chief executive officer of EyeCare WeCare, who personally attends to all patients in their mobile clinic.

EyeCare We Care is based in Washington state and has been conducting free clinics and distributing eyeglasses to indigent patients in Negros and other parts of the Visayas twice a year since 2004.

Finally, Helen, when made to see through test glasses, saw the clear world around her that she leaped, sobbed and cried in joy, screaming in hysterical tone,  “I can now see well, I can now see well.”

She even refused to let go of the test glasses until she was told she could pick up her new pair up from the makeshift clinic of the team. “To make sure that she always sees well, we gave her two pairs,” Ellen said.

I don’t know how to express my appreciation for your for making me able to finally see the faces of members of my family and the world around me, the profusely grateful woman told Ellen.

Helen was one of the 1,769 poor Negrenses who benefited from the 10 EyeCare WeCare field clinics held for nine days in its January calendar. The clinics were conducted also in Barangays Poblacion, Atipuluan, Mailum, Ilijan, Taloc and Calumangan as well as in Rizal in Silay City and Valladolid.

Dr. Weyrich conducts eye examination with his team of about two dozen home-grown volunteers dispensing donated eyeglasses and sun protection as well as eye and general systemic medications. The team also holds educational sessions on eye diseases and prevention. EyeCare We Care refers to local specialists patients who need eye surgeries and provides a sustaining program for pre-identified glaucoma patients by giving them a new supply of medications every six months.

The January clinics had the most number of beneficiaries in Negros Occidental, Dr. Weyrich said, since the team started its mission six years ago. The number brings to a total of 11,088 served by EyeCare WeCare.

While the foundation, like any other agency or institution, has been affected by the economic slowdown, it has sustained its commitment with the help of its partners, among them, Alcon Medical Missions and Inter Ocular Lenses, it said in its website.

Dr. Weyrich has kept the optimism in his heart, saying he is encouraged by the growing interest in his organization. He revealed that EyeCare WeCare credibility has grown through the years, adding that as of January it was rated online as No. 17 among humanitarian foundations in the world, the ranking even going to No. 5 at one time.

For its second outreach in the country later this year, Dr. Weyrich said they have decided to extend the humanitarian service for the first time in Pampanga – upon the request of a Philippine nurses group in Florida which has been supportive of the foundations’ fund mobilization campaign.

To cut down on expenses, Dr. Weyrich is hoping that local shipping lines will agree to ferry its mobile clinic at minimal or no cost. He added he is looking at the possibility of seeking the help for the Philippine Coast Guard in the expansion of the EyeCare WeCare coverage areas since the PCG has existing medical missions that his organization can supplement. With places in the Philippines being separated by waters, we need such linkages to help us reach more and more needy people, Dr. Weyrich said.

We at EyeCare We Care, including our volunteers who untiringly doe their jobs like professionals, feel happy to be part of the immense change in people’s lives through the assistance we extend to them, he further said, as he emphasized a personal feeling: “My heart is here in the Philippines. If I have a choice, I don’t want to go back to America but I need to work and raise funds for our mission here; it’s hard for my wife and I to wait between our two annual missions.”

He expressed hopes that Eyecare WeCare will continue to get more corporate support so that it can continue to expand and help more needy people, like Helen and her kind. “The more I do here, the more I want to do more,” Dr. Weyrich said.      AVDC

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