Lions Club sets free vision, hearing tests, free child ID kits on Sept. 22

The Belleville Area Lions Club will present a free event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 22, at the Belleville Area District Library.
Because of the construction of the new library, people attending the Lions Club event are invited to park at the First United Methodist Church parking lot across Charles Street from the library.
Lions KidSight will do vision screenings, Lions Hearing Center will do hearing screenings, and Michigan Mason Child Identification Program will be there with child ID and DNA kits.
KidSight, a Lions Club community service program, provides a simple, noninvasive and cost-free vision screening test performed on young children. It requires no medication or preparation and is painless. It does require parental permission. It also screens adults up to 99 years old.
KidSight screens for:
• Hyperopia – Far-sightedness, the difficult seeing objects that are near. Untreated this can contribute to crossing of the eyes, but can be corrected with glasses.
• Myopia, near-sightedness, which is when the eyes focus incorrectly, making distant objects appear blurred. It also can be treated with glasses.
• Astigmatism – a condition in which the cornea has an abnormal curve causing out-of-focus vision.
• Anisometropia – a condition that can adversely affect the development of binocular vision in infants and children. The brain will often suppress the vision of the blurrier eye in a condition called Ambylopia or “lazy eye.”
• Strabismus – eyes are not directed to an object simultaneously. Sometimes the eyes deviate outward and sometimes inward.
Newborn hearing screening identifies most children born with a hearing loss. But in some cases the hearing loss is caused by things like infections, trauma, and damaging noise levels and the problem doesn’t emerge until later in childhood. That is why it is important to have children’s hearing checked regularly as they grow.
The Lions Hearing Center is a non-profit that serves Southeastern Michigan by helping the deaf and hard of hearing. It provides hearing screening services to thousands of children and adults each year, provides affordable hearing aids to those in need and helps deaf children and their families find resources and support.
The Michigan Masons Child ID Program was set up because Michigan Masons believe that every child deserves to be safe. While countless children fall victim to predators each year, there are steps that parents can take to help prevent this tragedy.
The Michigan Child ID Program provides parents and guardians with a Child ID Kit that contains all the vital information necessary to expedite law enforcement efforts to locate a missing child. The program also helps to educate families about abduction prevention and safety.
The kit includes a photo ID card, color photo, digital fingerprints, recorded interview to capture speech characteristics, dental impressions, DNA, and a complete Amber Alert profile.
For more information on the upcoming event at the library, call (248) 390-9233 or email [email protected] .