First Brien Holden Founders Award dinner

Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) recently honored the memory of the organization’s founder, professor Brien Holden, Ph.D., with the inaugural Brien Holden Founders Award dinner, the organization said in an announcement. Holden, a leader in expanding access to vision care worldwide who passed away in 2015, established OGS in 2003 in collaboration with the World Council of Optometry and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) as a fundraising organization to support programs globally to end uncorrected refractive error.

During the evening, OGS presented the inaugural Brien Holden Founders Award to Dr. Greg Pearl and to CooperVision for their long-standing efforts to continue the work that Holden did during his lifetime to expand access to vision care and for their ongoing and generous support of OGS, the announcement noted. CooperVision president Jerry Warner accepted the award on behalf of the company.

In his opening remarks, OGS U.S. board chair Dr. Juan Carlos Aragón remembered Holden as “a man of action and a man of passion. He was a fearless colleague, a passionate friend, and a tireless leader in the fight against uncorrected refractive error.”

He continued by reminding attendees that “your belief in the work carried forward by OGS has made a profound difference. Your support has helped us tackle the underlying cause of preventable blindness and vision impairment—lack of access to vision care.”

Since its inception, OGS has helped establish 14 optometry schools, trained more than 14,000 optometrists and paraprofessionals, and built over 200 vision centers for clinical training and patient care, the announcement added.

“With your support, we have provided desperately needed vision care to over 15 million people in more than 70 countries,” Dr. Aragón told attendees. “As I remember my friend and colleague, Brien, I can’t help but think how proud he would be of what we have accomplished—together—in his memory.”

Optometry Giving Sight is a nonprofit organization that raises funds from optometrists, optometry practices, and optometry-related businesses and corporations to award grants for sustainable, impactful projects that expand the profession and improve access to vision care in underserved areas of the world.

For more information about OGS and its work, click here.