Circle of Light Photo Project

 In September I was invited to a reception at the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank located at the University of Colorado Hospital campus for a reception for photographers, as one of the photos I submitted for their annual "Circle of Light" photo project had been selected for display.

The Circle of Light Photo Project, hosted by the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank, is an annual art exhibit of photographs taken by people whose sight was restored through cornea transplants. Cornea transplant recipients take photos of things they are grateful to see after receiving the gift of sight from an eye tissue donor.

The photo that was chosen out of a sampling I submitted this year was the one above-- a view in the San Juan Mountains in SW Colorado of the Durango to Silverton Train ride my husband and I took last fall--click here--to see that post.

I was a cornea transplant recipient in 2015--you can read my story in this blog post. Every day since I have been so grateful that a donor's cornea has restored my gift of sight! I was legally blind because of cornea dystrophy in my right eye before the transplant and now having 20/40 vision and normal depth perception has been such a blessing. 

My transplant cornea came from the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank, an organization that yearly provides about 2,000 corneas for transplants in Colorado and Wyoming and to locales beyond--even around the world--if there is no local recipient on the waiting list. 

The Lions Clubs have long been active in service to the blind and visually impaired and began providing support for eye banks more than 60 years ago. Today there are over 60 Lions eye banks in nine countries that provide the "Gift of Sight" to thousands of men, women, and children. If you are looking for an excellent charity to contribute to this holiday season, donate to your local Lions Club or the Lions Club International, to help them continue their work in alleviating blindness.

Approximately 90 photo entries were submitted by cornea recipients for this year's Circle of Light show. “We invited our staff to vote for their favorites,” said Jenn Venerable, the community and professional relations manager at the Aurora eye bank, and 19 images were ultimately chosen to be in a traveling exhibition in both large poster-size reproductions.

The photos were also reproduced in smaller framed and matted 8 X 12  photos.

It was so nice to meet some fellow photographers at the eye bank reception, including the mother of a cornea transplant donor. She told us that although she suffered from losing a young son in an accident, she was comforted by the knowledge that two other people had their sight restored through her son's donated corneas.

In November,  I volunteered to be present for a day during one of the traveling Circle of Light photo exhibits, this time at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, where I represented the photographers by speaking with staff and visitors who stopped by the exhibit display located near the hospital cafeteria. 

If you want to learn more about becoming an organ donor and giving the gift of sight or life, please visit this link. 

As I learned at a past seminar about donation, giving a part of yourself upon death is ending your life with a comma, and not a period. You can help someone else to see, or survive with a vital organ. What better way to honor life?

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