Glasses for Teachers and Learners
In the past 12 months, Hands Across Nations has given out more than 2,000 pairs of glasses to people in the “Learning to Read to Read the Bible” literacy program, and over 6,000 pairs in the last 4 years. When I left Uganda this year in July, we were completely out of two strengths of glasses. That is absolutely no longer the case.
Mike and Helen Salapka have generously donated thousands of glasses, and we are preparing them for transport to Uganda.
Mike couldn’t decide which frames he liked the best so he tested them all!
This year, all of the new glasses had large paper price tags on them held on by strong plastic string. That would not seem to be a big deal, but when we are giving out up to 100 pairs of glasses at a village or prison literacy class, clipping those tags off becomes a challenge and a mess of trash.
Mary Ann and Earl Ross, above, and Emily McMillan, below, volunteered to do the tag cutting for all 4,000 pairs of glasses!
All of the beautiful glasses cases seen above, were made by our Advisory Committee Secretary Carmen Deal. She has made several thousand cases over the years.
What a great glasses team we have! Terry Trefz, our chef for the Benefit Dinner, is also an expert box taper – able to completely cover large boxes with packing tape and red duct tape (for easy identification), in record time, so they’ll survive at least 4 trips flying back and forth to Uganda. Then up to 1,000 pairs of glasses are carefully packed in each box, which will weigh right at 50lb, the maximum weight limit for the airline.
On this trip, I will take 2-3 boxes of glasses and the other boxes will be ready for transport by any short term missionaries that come to visit us this year. Almost half of the cost of shipping, $200 per 50lb box, was raised at the HAN Auction in October. A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who raised your bidding plates at the auction in support of shipping glasses as well as books!
Glasses are given out to teachers and learners in our HAN program only when they have completed at least the first 10 lessons in Primer #1. Previously, we found that when new teachers received their reading glasses at the end of their training……some of them never started a class! They were willing to attend training for 3 days for a pair of glasses! Learners have the same attitude in some classes. But by the time they reach 10 lessons and find that they are already able to read simple sentences in their native language, they are HOOKED, and will continue to come to class even after receiving their glasses.
