Roseville optometrist gives youth a new look on life

For 20 years, Dr. Paul Gollender has envisioned giving back to youth, and this Valentines Day, he did by providing free eye exams to them during the inaugural Eye Love You Back event. "Our mission statement is we want to provide vision care and free eye exams to people who can't afford it or there are other barriers," Gollender said. "We wanted them to feel welcome on Valentine's Day so we threw a party." By the end of the event, 53 youth received eye exams, ranging from ages 3 to 22. Of at number, 39 youth needed glasses, according to Gollender. The 39 youth will receive the glasses for free, according to Gollender. "I just got out of my exam and I need glasses," said Terrance Harris, who was at the Eye Love You Back event. "I am really excited because getting a chance to be better at things is really exciting." The exams also indicated that three youth showed significant risk factors for glaucoma and two youth tested likely to have diabetic retinopathy. "All the children seen will receive a summary report within three weeks and a copy of their eye glass prescription," Gollender said. "The parents of the children with the other medical eye conditions are in the process of being notified with letters of referral to the appropriate specialist." Gollender has practiced optometry in Roseville since 1994 at Family Eye Clinic in Roseville and took over the practice last fall. His passion to give back started when Gollender was studying optometry at the University of California at Berkeley. "One of the basic founding reasons why I did this is when I was in school," Gollender said. "They (Dr. Kathleen Kennedy and Dr. Kevin Reeder) were always doing charity work, those two, and they would go to different places in the world that needed eye care and they would stay there for a week on their dime." Gollender did not have the money to join them at the time, he reminisced. "I maybe can't go to Fiji but I can give back to my community," Gollender said. "I just thought I can afford to shut my office down for a day because there is nothing wrong with that and it is for a good cause." Gollender's former classmates, Kennedy and Reeder, and Dr. Peter Klem also conducted eye exams with him on Feb. 14. "I got into this field because of kids with learning disabilities and visually, it is so important to have the tools to help you in the classroom, because if you don't at an early age, you fall behind," Klem said. Klem views the Feb. 14 Eye Love You Back event as providing youth with medical care and giving them a better opportunity for success in life. "I will have a child, who occasionally is farsighted, say that they love to read and are doing great in school," Klem said. "I congratulate them because they are working three times harder than the average kid because of their vision issues." Next year, Gollender said, Kennedy and Reeder will bring the Eye Love you Back event to their practices in San Francisco and San Diego respectively. "Eventually, what I would like to see is 50 offices doing this in a single day and if it fills, that would be 5,000 patients in a single day," Gollender said.