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6110 Vision Quest – A Humanitarian Initiative of District 6110

In the House of Friendship at the RI Convention in New Orleans, a Rotarian could be seen manufacturing a pair of reading glasses from very basic materials in less than 15 minutes.

6110 Vision Quest is a project started by the Rotary Club of Iola, Kansas and Rotary District 6110 to bring inexpensive reading glasses to people in poor communities with little or no hope of receiving glasses. In addition to the actual glasses, this project is structured in such a way as to allow for the development of a micro business using micro credits.

The project provides the raw materials and training needed to allow someone in a developing country to make reading glasses for themselves and their neighbors. This is accomplished by Rotarian's partnering with Rotarian's in countries whose citizens have unmet vision needs. No one knows the needs within a country better than the Rotarian's that live there.

Those Rotarian's can be trained to make the glasses in a short period of time using a jig and tools that come in the glasses manufacturing kit. Next the newly trained Rotarian selects a community with needs and goes there to select a resident to be trained to test eye sight and make glasses needed for people in their community.

The glasses are made of 1/16" (1.6 mm.) stainless steel wire, poly carbonate lenses, and PVC plastic tubing to protect the ears. This process was perfected by Dale Rozell, a missionary in Florida, and he has graciously agreed that his manufacturing method could be used as a Rotary project with the goal of bringing enhanced vision to those in the world needing glasses, but having little or no hope of receiving any.

A complete kit costs US$250.00. This provides tools, instructions, test kits and materials to make 314 pairs of glasses.  This enables simple manufacture of durable and serviceable reading glasses from +1.00 to +4.00 strengths by +.25 increments at a cost of only 45 cents per pair.

Replacement materials providing the stainless steel wire, lenses, and PVC tubing needed for 314 pairs of glasses cost just US$140.00.

Vision Quest manufacturing kits are now in Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Chile, Philippines, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, India, Vietnam and Easter Island.