NHS Valedictorian Is Living Up To, And Exceeding, Expectations

Twenty-five-year-old Jennifer Staple — a lifelong Newtown resident and founder, CEO, and president of Unite For Sight (UniteForSight.org) —– is one of 30 young leaders profiled in the recently released book Our Time Is Now: Young People Changing the World. Ms Staple will also be on ABC-TV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on September 17, when hundreds of eyeglasses are donated to her organization.

It was while working at Danbury Eye Physicians and Surgeons during the summer of 2000 that Ms Staple was exposed to the need for eye care education and screening programs in her community.

There are 45 million people in the world without eyesight, and astoundingly, 80 percent of blindness is preventable. The major barriers to eye care in developing countries include education and awareness, expense, distance and transportation, not to mention the poor quality of services by untrained or undertrained doctors.

Countries such as Ghana, which have so few ophthalmologists, cannot meet the eye care needs of the majority of its population.

While other might have felt helpless to affect change, Ms Staple founded Unite For Sight, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that addresses preventable blindness. The organization, which started in Ms Staple’s dorm room at Yale University, has since become a global entity serving more than 400,000 people in 25 countries.

Volunteer teams work with partner eye clinics in developing countries to provide eye care and eye health education programs. Additionally, vision screening and education programs are implemented worldwide by volunteers working in 90 chapters established in North America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Unite For Sight has sponsored more than 4,000 sight-restoring cataract surgeries for those unable to otherwise afford their own care, as well as additional eye care for thousands of others.

Dr James Clarke, one of Unite For Sight’s partner ophthalmologists in Ghana, wrote an article for the UK-based journal Eye News about the organization.

“The question I have always asked myself is ‘What would have happened to all these people who have benefited from Unite For Sigh programs had the organization not come to their aid?’ It is likely that many would have perished in their agony,” he wrote in part.

Two years ago Ms Staple was the winner of a YouthActionNet Award, an honor launched by The International Youth Foundation (IYF) and Nokia in 2001. YouthActionNet works to recognize and promote the role of youth in leading positive change. Its awards, given to 20 youth leaders annually, spotlight the far-reaching accomplishments of young social entrepreneurs.

Our Time is Now: Young People Changing the World tells the stories of 23 young people from around the globe who have been honored with YAN Awards, young adults who are taking action to contribute to their local and global communities. The book spotlights the efforts of young leaders who are addressing a host of urgent global challenges: poverty, violence, racism, environmental destruction, and civic apathy, among them.

Written by writer and communications consultant Sheila Kinkade and published author and former White House speechwriter Christina Macy, the book was released in November 2005 by The Pearson Foundation. The 176-page paperback sells for $19.95 (ISBN 0977231909).

The book opens with a Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who calls those featured in the book “committed young leaders who chose not to look the other way when they saw a problem — the shame experienced by a person with HIV/AIDS, the poisoning of a sacred river, the frustration of a nation’s citizens in the face of a national crisis, the exclusion of the physically disabled. These are young people who choose to make a stand.”

Jennifer Staple’s story is featured in the book’s third section, called “A Commitment To Grow: From Local to Global.” The third of three sections in the book, “A Commitment to Grow” begins with an introduction by Kailash Satyarthi. The book’s first two sections are “Passion For A Cause: What Sparks It?” with an introduction by Marian Wright Edelman, and “Different Roads in The Same Destination: A Better World,” with introduction by Christiane Amanpour.

Dr Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders and the former head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, is one of the leaders who wrote of Ms Staple’s work in Our Time Is Now.

“Over the centuries, most leaders have sought to bring about change through military intervention. I’ve tried to mobilize people to undertake another strategy — humanitarian intervention,” Dr Koucher said. “Every citizen has the right to receive care and live with dignity, and national boundaries and political or financial circumstances cannot influence who receives that support.

“Through her work to expand the fight against blindness around the globe, Jennifer Staple has intervened in some of the world’s poorest communities to ensure that their citizens, too, can lead healthy and productive lives.”

 Dr James C. Toole, president of The Compass Institute, also praises Ms Staple in discussing why she was able to build Unite For Sight into a 25-country network.

“Probably for two reasons: first, people sensed the gravity of the issue, and second, as one person shared about her, ‘She simply captures their imaginations,’” Dr Toole wrote.

From The Written Page To Primetime TV

Ms Staple, who is currently a second year medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine in California (and the valedictorian of Newtown High School’s Class of 1999), benefited recently during the filming of an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This is the Emmy-nominated reality show that takes, says ABC’s website, one very rundown house, a deserving family, several opinionated designers, seven days and features a race against time on a project that normally would take at least four months to achieve.

The projects involve the show’s design team — team leader and carpenter Ty Pennington, Paul DiMeo (carpentry/attitude), Paige Hemmis (carpentry/nut and bolts), Michael Moloney (interiors/glamour), Constance Ramos (building/planning), Ed Sanders (construction), Preston Sharp (exteriors/big ideas), Eduardo Xol (landscaping), Tanya McQueen (design), and Daniel Kucan (design) — working with contractors and hundreds of workers who are given only seven days to completely rebuild an entire house, plus the exterior and landscaping.

The project the Jennifer Staple found herself included in involves the show’s design team rebuilding a home in Bergenfield, N.J., for the Llanes family — a blind couple and their family, which includes two visually impaired children and a child who is deaf. The two back-to-back episodes will air on Sunday, September 17, on ABC-TV.

ABC contacted Ms Staple back in May after doing, she was told, a search for eyeglasses drives. The network’s initial contact was on May 3, and taping was done less than a week later — on May 9 in New Jersey.

In addition to making a tremendous difference for the family, the show’s producer, J.P. Gilbert, secured 600 donations of new eyeglass frames from Marchon, Safilo and other eyeglass manufacturers. The community also donated their used eyeglasses during a community concert that drew thousands of people to hear — who else? — the four-time Grammy Award-winning Blind Boys of Alabama.

“They were awesome,” Ms Staple said last week. The concert was hosted by Oscar winner Marlee Matlin.

Ms Staple said was able to meet most of the design team, including Paige, Eduardo, Michael, Tanya, and Daniel, and was happy when one of the design team members added his own glasses to the collection.

“Paul DiMeo, the guy who wears the black framed glasses, threw his glasses right into the community collection bin,” she said.

In all, more than 800 pairs of eyeglasses were donated to Unite For Sight. Ms Staple was given time to make a short speech to the crowd, which was taped for inclusion on the September 17 episode.

 “We are grateful to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for their generosity and their incredible work rallying the community of Bergenfield to donate their eyeglasses to our partner eye clinics in Sierra Leone and Ghana.

“Over one billion people in developing countries need eyeglasses but cannot afford them,” Ms Staple continued. “Over four million eyeglasses are thrown away each year in North America. These eyeglasses are very important to the communities where we work abroad, and we’re looking forward to sharing photos and messages of thanks with the Bergenfield community after the eyeglasses are prescribed by the optometrists and ophthalmologists abroad.”