(PRESS RELEASE) GOLDEN, CO — Optometry Giving Sight announces the appointment of Anne Marie Hand, MPH, as its new executive director, North America. Hand will assume the role on June 1. Optometry Giving Sight, which supports eyecare projects in the developing world, has offices in Golden, CO; and Calgary, Canada.
Hand brings a wealth of non-profit management experience to Optometry Giving Sight and comes to the organization from the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, where she has been in a leadership position since 2011. Prior to the Girl Scouts, she served as the deputy director, Southwest Region, of Childsight, a division of Helen Keller International. She holds a master’s in public health from California State University at Northridge and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
“I am honored to have been selected to lead Optometry Giving Sight. I look forward to being a part of the effort to bring the organization to the next level and continue to provide sight and hope where it is desperately needed,” says Hand.
Juan Carlos Aragon,, OD, chair of the U.S. Optometry Giving Sight board and president of CooperVision’s specialty lens division, says, “We are delighted to have Anne Marie taking on our staff leadership role. Her excellent background and expertise will bring a fresh perspective to our efforts in raising funds to provide eye care to those who are desperately in need.”
Susan Cooper, OD, chair of the Optometry Giving Sight board in Canada and managing director of the World Council of Optometry, says, “Our Canadian donors are a loyal and generous group and we look forward to Anne Marie helping to expand our reach throughout the country to ultimately grow our fundraising success.”
Eric Anderson, who has served as the interim executive director for the past year, will remain with Optometry Giving Sight as the lead fundraiser. The board thanks Anderson for stepping into this role and looks forward to continuing to work with him in this leadership position.
Optometry Giving Sight is a North American fundraising initiative that specifically targets preventable blindness and impaired vision in the global developing world due to uncorrected refractive error (URE) – simply the need for an eye examination and a pair of glasses.
It was established in 2003 by the Brien Holden Vision Foundation, and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness to mobilize support from the global eye care profession in helping to end URE, which currently affects an estimated 1.2 billion people worldwide. Optometry Giving Sight offices were established in the U.S. and Canada in 2007.
Optometry Giving Sight funds the development of accessible and sustainable eye and vision care projects in communities where either they do not exist or they are in need of support.