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"My world is a different place with sounds I can't ever remember hearing before."
Loretta Reynolds felt as if she was always missing something.  "I was ashamed much of the time and after I would pretend to hear as opposed to requesting the person speaking to repeat their statements until I understood.  I'm sure it hindered my learning ability."

As a child, Loretta played the violin and was a girl scout.  With 6 brothers and sisters a house can be full of noise making it hard to hear even without a hearing loss.  "I can't remember not having a hearing problem, I have almost always had the loss," said Loretta.

It wasn't until last year when she was already a Grandmother that she looked into getting hearing aids.  She thought that there was no help for her because she was living on a fixed income.  But she received her first pair of hearing aids through the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation last fall and now is hearing properly for the first time in years. 

Loretta works for the Georgia Department of Labor.  While, her hearing impairment did not hinder from being able to find employment she feels that the hearing aids have helped her with her job.  " I can perform my job better by having interaction with the groups of people I speak to daily.  I can hear their questions and answer correctly without asking for them to repeat things over and over."

"Now, I can hear everything.  My world is a different place with sounds I can't ever remember hearing before."

Read more success stories by clicking here.

Lighthouse Mobile Eye Clinic Program Aims to Prevent Serious Eye Disease

The Lighthouse Foundation partners with 10 nonprofit clinics and community centers throughout the state to provide eye exams and eyeglasses on a monthly and bi-monthly basis with their Mobile Vision Clinic.

Clinic locations include Albany, Atlanta, Athens, Augusta, Brunswick, Decatur, Macon, Savannah, Tifton, and Waycross.  The emphasis of this mobile eye clinic is to serve areas with high populations of diabetic and hypertension patients and provide treatment before eye conditions worsen.

With the clinic program approaching its two year anniversary, the Lighthouse has more than met it's goal of increasing services and access for patients who could not otherwise afford these prevenative exams.  Eddie Smith is one such patient.

Eddie's Story
Eddie came to St. Mary’s Community Center, the Lighthouse's Savannah partner, for an initial exam.  Eddie, like many of the patients the Lighthouse sees, had uncontrolled diabetes. 

Diabetes can cause your vision to fluctuate and when your sugars are not under control, your vision becomes poor.  If your diabetes is so uncontrolled, patients are unable to receive prescriptions for eyeglasses. There vision varies too much on a daily basis.  Eddie was one of these patients.

The Lighthouse's partner volunteer ophthalmologist, Dr. Croci, told Eddie that he was going to be unable to receive a pair of glasses from us because they really wouldn’t help.  He told him to get his sugar under control and then he could come back.

And he did.  Eddie took this advice to heart and realized that he could go blind.  He set up appointments with the local free clinic, Community Health Mission, to help him manage his diabetes and within 4 weeks, he was able to get his sugar under control.  His hemoglobin A1C, a test that is a good indicator of diabetic control, was perfect.

He was able to get his glasses and has much better overall health as well as visual health.