During the past 12 school years, the Realeyes curriculum has been presented by over 550 optometrists and staff to more than 650,000 students in 18,000 classrooms in Ohio. The goal is to educate students (and along the way, parents, teachers, school officials and others) about the importance of vision care and eye safety. Through thousands of returned pre- and post-tests, student participants in Realeyes reveal that their knowledge of eye and vision health has grown. Through 9,500 teacher evaluations that have been collected, the average rating for the Realeyes presentations is 4.8 out of 5.0. Stories are told of students receiving vision correction, understanding the importance vision to learning, taking better care of their eyes, and wearing their glasses as a result of the Realeyes presentation. Realeyes is a powerful advocacy message about vision, and everything needed for a Realeyes presentation is provided by the OOA.
Realeyes is funded by a grant from the Ohio Department of Health through donations raised from $1 contributions by Ohioans at the time they renew their license plates.