49A Joint Sight Committee
The Lions Clubs in District 49A have set up a 49A Joint Sight Committee that will be the source of funding for eye care for all of our individual club’s sight projects in District 49A.
Funding Sources
The new 49A Joint Sight Committee (JSC) will request funding for a “continuous” grant from our District 49A Foundation along with other funding sources, i.e., major corporations such as Walmart, Safeway, Pick-Click-Give, the Rasmussen Foundation, BP to name a few. The committee will then fund a portion of each clubs’ sight committee requests. We are setting up a 50/50 grant request procedure. Once in place, the individual club joint sight committees can request reimbursement for 50% of their expenses from the 49A JCS. We have asked the clubs to tally up what they have spent in eye care over the past year and send their totals to the new committee. This will give us a start-up figure we can use to request our initial grant request from the 49A Foundation.
When the new 49A JSC is operational, individual clubs will no longer go to the 49A Foundation for sight project requests. Our District 49A Foundation does not fund requests for grants for individuals but they will give humanitarian grants for community projects. Our individual clubs will request funds from the new 49A JSC. The committee will then request a grant from the 49A Foundation, grouping all of the clubs’ requests together making the grant a community project.
Working Together
Working together is a way for our clubs to replace the VSP program. In August of 2024, the Lions lost our VSP Gift Voucher program administered by Lions International. The vouchers were used for any individual with no insurance to be able to get eye exams and glasses at no charge. The Lions and the School Nurse Association of Alaska used the vouchers to secure services valued at over $30,000 in the previous year. That source of funding is now gone and may not return. This is putting a strain on our individual club budgets. Without some type of reliable funding, our district clubs’ sight committees may not be able to continue.
Officers
Our new committee will be made up of at least one club member from each club that accepts requests for sight projects in their community. The officers and board of directors will be elected/appointed at our next meeting. Signers will be appointed for the checking accounts. All of this should be done during our next meeting on July 28, at 6PM on Zoom.