PENDLETON — The Wildhorse Foundation during the 2023-24 school year granted $7,500 to the Oregon Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation to ensure students in Morrow, Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties receive regular, first quality vision screening.

The grant supported vision screenings at 40 schools for 9,882 students throughout the four-county service area, according to a recent press release from the Oregon Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation. That grant translated into state-of-the-art vision screening for 1,875 students. Of the total number of students receiving vision screening from OLSHF in the four-county region, 2,158 were referred for comprehensive vision exams.

The Wildhorse Foundation of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation has provided this support for more than a decade.

In addition to the screenings, the Oregon Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation helps coordinate resources for underserved student families for low-cost/no-cost vision exams and eyeglasses. OLSHF also partners with all the Lions Clubs throughout the region. Lions Club members volunteer at school vision screening events to interact with students and to help ensure all students can see to learn.

To learn more about the OLSHF, visit olshf.org. For more on Lions of Oregon, visit www.md36lionsclubs.org. To learn more about the Wildhorse Foundation, visit thewildhorsefoundation.com.