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Conexus received a gift from the Coleman Hunter Charitable Trust as a match to the outstanding Cabell Foundation challenge award. The Coleman Hunter gift moves Conexus one step closer to finalizing the $114,500 match, with just a little over $19,000 still pending. Conexus is eager to close the gap and secure the much needed funding to purchase additional equipment, software, and technology upgrades and finalize the last few items on the renovations of the Conexus headquarters. If you are interested in making a donation to the Capital fund, please contact Tim Gresham at Tim@ConexusVision.org.
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The Conexus Council for Pediatric Vision met this morning in Richmond, VA. Exciting plans are being made for a ground breaking study, partnering with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) that will likely change the way children are screened for vision problems throughout the United States. “The mission of Conexus is to eliminate poor vision as barriers to success, and our vision is that every child reach their fullest potential,” said Conexus CEO Tim Gresham. “Our study will determine best practice public screening methods and protocols,” added Gresham.
As Conexus continues its growth, reaching tens of thousands of children each year through mass screenings, the organization is convening a panel of experts to formally review and approve Conexus programs as best practice. To provide a broad , well rounded perspective of the program, the panel includes representation from the both the medical and education community and consists of two pediatric ophthalmologists, two optometrists, a representative from public health, a representative from public education, and a representative from early childhood education. The committee will be staffed by Conexus.
Panel Members:
 VisioCheck statistics show that Head Start programs tend to have higher referral rates for vision problems in their student population. On average, Head Start programs refer at 33-35%, which is well above the national average of 25%. Since 80% of what a child learns in a normal classroom setting it’s critical that they start their education with all the benefits of their goof vision. We invest a significant amount of resources to help insure good, quality kindergarten readiness programs for some of our most “at risk” children. Please help us in our efforts to standardize vision programs in Head Start to make sure all of our children are getting the very best comprehensive programming available in the nation! "Those identified with vision problems, have an increase in class participation and some of them in playground activities."  Charles “Bo” Pegram, O.D. serves as the Chairman of the Board at Conexus but his service doesn’t stop there! Just last week Bo, volunteered to provide free eye exams to more than 30 elementary students that were identified as having a potential vision problem through the Conexus VisioCheck program.
This is Bo’s 2nd year volunteering his professional services to students who may otherwise not get the vision care they need! Bo’s been practicing optometry for more than 30 years and knows the importance of the work being done at Conexus. Bo has lead Conexus through some of it’s most exciting and challenging times as it merged from Prevent Blindness Mid-Atlantic and we’re grateful for his support!
“My teachers, parents and students at G. H. Reid Elementary School, were very pleased with the Conexus and Essilor partnership. The Essilor vision Van was fantastic! They were also very effecient 56 of my students received glasses in 1 and 1/2 days! You should have seen the smiles on the student's faces when they received their glasses! Is there anything I can do to request this again? This is the best partnership I have seen for children's vision services in my 29 years as a veteran school nurse! Thank you so much!" Conexus Director of Community Programs and Public Health, Melissa Perry, is visiting neighboring PBNC Affiliate to help support the implementation of the Conexus-created online voucher request and processing program. Melissa developed the online request system and companion data base, which has been an important time saver for our partners and staff. The system can be accessed by registered partners and provides step by step qualification and request processing-all electronically. Fulfilled requests are populated into a management database to help insure best practice in voucher disbursement. Conexus is very pleased to be working with PBNC in this capacity, and looks forward to other opportunities for partnerships across the country.
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