Complete Story
08/14/2025
Realeyes - A Letter from Britt Dahlstrom
Backpacks, notebooks, and packed lunches, oh my, the back-to-school checklists! Amidst this busy time, the Realeyes staff is preparing for another fantastic year of educating Ohio students about the importance of healthy vision. Realeyes has been a trusted community partner for more than 25 years and we value sharing the message of eye health and safety with children in all 88 Ohio counties. The Realeyes staff wants to make it simple for you to join us in our mission to reach 100,000 students this year. Click through to prepare for the upcoming year, learn more about Realeyes and how you can help, and recognize Realeyes presenters from 2024 – 2025.
REALEYES VOLUNTEERS ARE THE BEST
Whether you visit one classroom of students at your local school, join Realeyes staff and answer questions during a Zoom presentation, or represent Realeyes at a community event, we appreciate all involvement in the Realeyes program. Many of you have been presenting long before my tenure here, and this past year it was great to see new faces as well as some returning presenters. In 2024-2025 we had 26 more presenters than the previous year! Visit our 24-25 Volunteer Stats section below to see how your colleagues were involved.
HELP RECRUIT MORE VOLUNTEERS
This increase in our volunteer pool is great, but it’s not enough. So, this year we are throwing down a REALEYES REFER-A-FRIEND CHALLENGE.
The Realeyes team is working hard to grow our volunteer list and make sure schools across Ohio have the opportunity to have a presenter. Help us grow our list by referring someone to us (another OD or member of your office staff).
Each existing presenter who refers a potential Realeyes volunteer will receive a small token of thanks. You can start by sending your recommendation to Realeyes@ooa.org or noting the name when completing the presenter profile. A personal email from you directly to the potential presenter (and copying us on it!) is even more effective.
And don’t worry, we’ll take care of the new presenters - once they complete a Realeyes assignment, they also will receive a small gift from us! Who can you recommend?
Not sure how to convince someone to get involved with Realeyes? We have a video for that. Hear from the beloved, Dr. Jeff Walline, Realeyes medical director, about the importance of the Realeyes program and why he believes all Ohio optometrists should be involved.
SIGN UP, REFRESH, LEARN MORE
Realeyes has come a long way since the live puppet show of Rhet & Tina in that first classroom. However, the goals of creating valuable eye health and safety classroom content, spreading the messaging of developing a lifetime of eye care, and making it fun and easy for the local optometrists and their staff to be in their communities has not changed. Are you ready for this year? Please let us know by filling out the PRESENTER PROFILE. We are looking for volunteers to do in classroom presentations, presenting over Zoom, doing Q&As over Zoom, and those willing to use Realeyes materials at health fairs and career days. You can indicate your interests on the profile form and even sign up for a training! We’ll lead training sessions for ODs and/or their staff. We can train one program at a time in short sessions or do a full 2-hour training to cover the whole Realeyes program. Reach out for more details.
REALEYES UNIVERSITY NEW CONTENT
Last year, Realeyes debuted a resource page for members. Visit Realeyes University for tips, scripts, and other resources to make presenting Realeyes as easy as 1,2,3. We’ve added some new content and plan on making this a priority this year. What content would be helpful for you to find on these pages?
Realeyes 101
OOA members are surprised to learn that their dues don’t go toward funding the Realeyes Program. All of the financial support we receive to run our programming comes from a grant from the Save Our Sight Fund through the Ohio Department of Health. When Ohioans renew their driver’s license they can opt to donate to the Save Our Fund. This special program finances several children's vision related non-profits with Realeyes being the educational component. To be part of Save Our Sight, Realeyes re-applies for funding each year and must carefully document the number of students reached along with their ages and location. This is why it is extremely important that we monitor who is using Realeyes materials. We have been fortunate to train nearly 1,000 amazing doctors and staff over 25 years, with many feeling comfortable to schedule and present on their own. If you are one of those doctors or have staff using a Realeyes packet, handout, video, or script, please let us know so we can account for that in the reporting. Reaching 100,000 Ohio students takes us all working together!
I’m proud to say that I work with the best people in Ohio – optometrists. Thank you for your generosity of time and talents as you educate students in Ohio. The pictures we get and stories we hear help renew our love for what we do to support you! So thank you!
Keep those pictures and stories coming (a new part of the Realeyes University pages )
Have a story to share now? Click here
Britt Dahlstrom
2024-2025 Volunteer Stats
To Rotate through the slides, click either the left or right of the image below.
