The Assil Sight Fund “Joining The Fight Against Blindness”
She found herself sobbing late at night. Kathryn Hartley’s three-year-old boy, N.J. was going blind from pathologic myopia, an extreme form of nearsightedness. She searched for someone who could help her child, throughout her homeland of Australia and then expanded her search to the entire globe. Since N.J. was only three years old and because his eye condition was so advanced, a surgical mistake would leave N.J. with vision in only one eye. No one was volunteering to help. Then one day, N.J.’s mom found The Assil Sight Fund and made a life changing call. The emotional relief after making a call to our foundation team was felt all around the Hartley home. After making the trek to the United States and meeting Dr. Kerry Assil, it was clear the foundation team would need special clearance from the FDA to use a lens that had only been used in adult study patients. After pleading N.J.’s case to the FDA, we were granted compassionate use permission to use a special lens for N.J. N.J.’s parents, grandparents and little brother were all on hand watching the surgery via closed-circuit TV. But, the celebration really started the next day when N.J. could see the pictures on the eye chart. He had gone from blindness to near normal vision overnight. Today N.J is nine years old and the last time I spoke with his mother, she told me N.J. is seeing even better with the treated eye than with his other eye and living a very normal life.Every person deserves a chance to see. The Assil Sight Fund, headed by Kerry Assil, MD, Medical Director and CEO of the Assil Eye Institute, is a fund dedicated to helping financially disadvantaged people who suffer from severe eye disorders. Every year we do as much as we can to help those who don’t have the resources to help themselves. People who live hand to mouth and have debilitating eye diseases cannot often afford care, and eventually go blind. Most people will never get to the stage where a cataract can cause blindness. For the less fortunate however, a simple cataract may indeed be what eventually leads to blindness, because without community involvement, they have no way of remedying what has become an everyday “curable” condition. People can be helped, ranging from cataract surgery to a complete corneal transplant. Dr Assil is a world-renowned eye surgeon, specializing in cataract removal, corneal transplants, LASIK and other eye surgeries. He has put his skills to work for the community, performing these charitable surgeries for the past two decades.
We invite you to join us in the fight against blindness. By contributing to the Assil Sight Fund, you can help someone less fortunate see again, regain life and independence, and enjoy the beauty of sight. For the last ten years, I have seen lives change, not just for the person receiving the gift of sight, but also for the entire family. I smile as I visualize the faces of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, as they watch their family member return to the person they were many years earlier, before their sight was seriously compromised. As the director of the Assil Sight Fund, the satisfaction I experience when a mother sees her daughters for the first time in years or when a rambunctious three-year- old boy gets the gift of a lifetime, reaffirms that I have found my calling. Even when a mother and son were stricken with the same debilitating eye disease, we were there to help. These are just a few of the thousands of people we have been able to help.
We have been very fortunate to have the community join us in our quest to restore sight for the less fortunate. The newest member of our foundation family is Juanita Fisher, who has placed a portion of her estate in a trust to assist in our cause. Juanita just wants to make other people happy by giving the gift of sight. We are indebted to people like Juanita who empower us to succeed.
Today, I am reaching out to you. There are many people who need your help, people who cannot afford to help themselves. With your donations, the Assil Sight Fund is able to continue the fight against blindness. I believe that if each of us gives a little, we can all give a lot. Not as the few but as the many, we can conquer anything. Please help in any way that you can. A donation today means sight tomorrow.Aaron Redman
Director
Assil Sight Fund
To make a tax-deductible donation, or for more information, please contact us:
The Assil Sight Fund
450 N. Roxbury Dr. 3rd Floor
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 828-2082
www.assilsightfund.org
The Assil Sight Fund is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization
