Dedicated to the prevention of blindness
About the Rand Eye Foundation
The Rand Eye Foundation was originally founded in 1985 by William J. Rand, MD. It developed from an initial invitation to lecture on eye care at a local senior citizens’ club. This lecture resulted in saving someone’s eye and restoring his dignity while transforming his life. This became the impetus leading to the creation of a Foundation dedicated to educating the community on the prevention of blindness and care of vision. The word quickly spread of its success to many clubs and organizations! The need for a speakers’ bureau was addressed by the Rand Eye Foundation leadership.
The Speakers Bureau spread to the professional ophthalmic world for which we have presented and hosted continuing education courses as well as national and international post graduate on-site lecture courses and seminars. The Foundation’s international speaking engagements developed into medical teaching and surgical missions in South America and Israel.
Today, the Rand Eye Foundation is a well respected endeavor which has educated groups of all ages. What was one doctor’s mission has now become a panel of lecturers comprised of ophthalmologists and optometrists dedicated to saving and preserving vision.
A Message from the President
Our Mission
Our Vision
Our Accomplishments
A Message from the President
On behalf of the Rand Eye Foundation and its Board of Directors, I extend my gratitude to our patients and local partners for their support through their generous donations. This great support improves awareness through our educational programs throughout our neighboring community and beyond.
Although the Foundation has been in operation for the past 25 years, it is not until recently, that its roots have spread and blossomed into the range of vision education and screening programs. The Speakers Bureau program broke record with over 100 presentations throughout the tri-county area. We are especially proud, that after many requests from our community, we launched our Vision Screening Program in September of 2009 and have since completed over 200 screenings. Tradition remains in hosting our various public and private schools for educational tours. Our attendance also reached record highs for the quarterly Continuing Education Credit courses offered to our local Optometrists and allied health professions.
This year has shown that our mission is truly in line with the needs of our local and professional community. We are thankful for our corporate sponsors: Allergan, Alcon, AMO, Bausch & Lomb, FPIC, Hoya Optics, Ista Pharmaceuticals, Sirion Therapeutics, community and private donations that have helped the continued growth of our programs.
We are especially proud to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of our volunteers and our Speakers Bureau Panel of doctors; our panel keeps growing. Without their dedicated time and expertise, vital vision educational information could not be properly communicated. It’s the human touch and compassionate understanding of how vision loss truly affects a person’s life and independence that makes the difference within our programs.
As we proceed into the future, we look forward to bigger and better results in expanding our vision education programs within the community with more targeted messages. With our ongoing partnership with Walgreens and its South Florida Regional pharmacies, we will be targeting a specific area of awareness and prevention with diabetes. You will see around town the Diabetes and Vision Screenings open to the public and as always, offered at no charge. We understand how economic times have changed and the affordability of medical insurance becomes more difficult to embrace. With these specialized screenings we will have the ability to empower our neighbors with education pertaining to diabetes and how it can affect vision, in turn providing peace of mind. To date, diabetes is still the leading cause of blindness throughout the United States. And for those who need to seek more care, we will be there to make the proper recommendations.
Our Foundation can only shine that beacon of light with the continued help from our corporate partners, donors and those who believe that we can make a difference by providing education towards the prevention of blindness.
William J. Rand, MD
The Rand Eye Foundation is committed to education and research in the prevention of blindness, inspiring the community to take a proactive role in its health care. The Rand Eye Foundation supports research efforts in the development of new treatments and surgical procedures related to eye care. It is incorporated with the State of Florida and has a Federally certified 501(c)3 non-profit status.
Once fully funded by the Rand Eye Institute, the Institute is now reaching out to the community to help it provide the services that the Foundation is uniquely qualified to fill.
This program is dedicated to empowering the residents of our surrounding community with the proper information to optimize the care of their vision. This cost-free service will have an impact in prevention of vision loss from the many eye diseases that afflict so many Americans today.
Our Accomplishments
• Ongoing Speakers Bureau program comprised of a panel of physicians, which for the past 25 years, has focused its efforts on educating and informing the general public and healthcare professionals. The Bureau’s goal is to share the most recent updates, research and development of new treatments in eye care.
• Continued Partner in Education with the tri-county area’s public and private schools encouraging young people to pursue the practice of medicine while teaching the fundamentals of team work, quality care and quality caring.
• Shadowing programs for students in careers in the medical areas of study in association with partnering colleges and universities.
• Extensive Vision & Glaucoma screenings performed by our optometric doctors.
• Presentations at the annual Broward Aging Network Conference to reach the community’s elders and caregivers.
• Regularly presenting State of Florida approved Continuing Education Lectures for Optometrists to obtain continuing education credits necessary to maintain licensure, while learning to apply the most recent treatments in managing their patients’ eye care.
• Continuing education lectures, providing continuing education credits and approved by the Florida Board for the health allied fields in pharmacology and nursing; focused on the area of vision care.
• Production of high-quality educational DVD presentations and print materials available to eye care professionals, students and science-based museums.
• Conducting International charitable missions and surgical expeditions to third world countries (charity surgery, equipment donations, and training of local surgeons.)
All programs have always been provided to the community at no charge.
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