Indigent Eye Care; Last year, (2012) our alumni and friends raised more than $12,000 to assist in patient care. In addition to our general fund, many of our staff and faculty donate to specialty areas (low vision or contact lenses). Every year, over $10,000 is needed to help the Metro St. Louis area residents with eye and vision care needs. Patients may be asked to pay $5 toward services, or replacement eyeglasses or contact lenses.

Specialty areas which alumni and friends may specify, if they wish:

Indigent Contact Lenses for patients needing assistance with specialty contact lenses (e.g. a pinhole pupil lens).

Indigent BV/VT for patients needing assistance with up to 8-10 BV/VT sessions. Patient’s families are asked to pay a small portion for each VT session.

Indigent Low Vision assistance for patients needing help, usually with the assessment portion.

Optometric Center Gifts; In-kind gifts of eye glass frames or lenses, and equipment are donated to help further the work at the Optometric Center.

Optometric Center Eye Care; Assistance for patients of the O Center is provided directly from this fund.

Optometry Equipment Fund; Gifts of used equipment not specified for a specific clinic are placed into this account.

East St. Louis Gift ; Gifts to support indigent eye care specifically in East St. Louis are placed into this account.

University Eye Center; Gifts to support indigent eye care specifically at the main campus clinic are placed into this account.

Scholarships

To send a gift to any one of these funds, please send a check payable to UM-St. Louis and please note on the memo line into which fund you want the gift to go. Please mail it to:

UM-St. Louis, College of Optometry
Lorraine Simeone, 331 Marillac Hall
One University Boulevard
St. Louis, MO 63121-4499

If you have any questions or would like to donate used equipment, please call Lorraine Simeone at 314-516-6361 or send her an email.