Members of local Lions Clubs will be at various locations in Grays Harbor May 4 and 5, handing out tiny white canes and promoting awareness of the club’s work on sight and hearing health issues.

Aberdeen Lions Club members will be at the Aberdeen Safeway and Walmart, and the Cosmopolis Lions will be at the Cosmopolis Post Office, Southside Swanson’s Food and the Aberdeen Dennis Company.

Lions Club members also hope to spread the word about the collection of used prescription eyeglasses and prescription and non-prescription sunglasses as part of a unique recycling program. The collected glasses will be cleaned and prepared for distribution in developing countries where eye care is often unaffordable and inaccessible.

Also, this year’s donations will assist the Lions in purchasing a vision screening device for use with school children and others within Grays Harbor County.

“We need everyone to donate their used eyeglasses,” said Cosi Lion Rod Matye, “In most developing countries, an eye exam can cost as much as one month’s wages and a single eye doctor may serve a community of hundreds of thousands of people.”

“In 1925, Helen Keller challenged the Lions Club International at their convention in Ohio, to become ‘Knights of the Blind,’ in her personal crusade against blindness,” said Price Chenault of the Aberdeen Lions Club — and they’ve been doing it ever since.