Youngsters focus on specs recycling

Seaton Young Leaders in Service are collecting eyeglasses to help needy people overseas

Seaton’s Young Leaders in Service are hoping to prove that seeing really is believing by working to promote spectacles recycling.

They have been helping to set up collection points in local schools so that unwanted spectacles can be sent to needy people overseas.

The young volunteers are working with Seaton and District Lions Club and community group Seaton’s Voice as part of a worldwide initiative to help chidden and adults see better.

Boxes and supporting posters have been placed in Colyton Grammar School and Axe Valley Community College, encouraging children and staff to scour their homes for old spectacles and bring them into school.

Once collected they are sent to an eyeglass recycling centre, where they are sorted. Frames are removed and recycled and the lenses are then cleaned and graded, classified by prescription and put into new frames and prepared for distribution.

The recycled glasses are sent on to one of the Lions’ eye camps in developing countries and distributed to both children and adults.

Colyton Grammar School headteacher Paul Evans and Axe Valley Community College head Martin Smith say they fully support the scheme and are delighted that the children have taken the initiative to bring this into their schools.

n The Young Leaders in Service are sponsored by Seaton and District Lions Club and Seaton’s Voice.

Lions Clubs have long been associated with blindness prevention and sight restoration.