Madison Central Lions Club
Eyeglass Recycling Committee
Most Madison Central Lions have no idea about what we have been doing with eye glass recycling for the past ten or eleven years.
The eye glass recycling program was started by Harlan Klipstein and Hall Otterback as co-chairs. Harlan died after about three years, and Glenn Holmes took his place. After Glenn died, Hall decided to not have another co-chair. Harlan had set everything up, and it was working OK.
Madison Central club members worked in shifts, Monday and Tuesday mornings and afternoons. Lions from Sun Prairie, Fitchburg, Mt. Horeb, and DeForest worked Wednesdays and Thursdays, but most worked only once a month. The other clubs lasted for about two years, and they all disappeared. Madison West Lions have had two members working every Friday since the beginning. Dale Bruhn is their current coordinator. Hal has taken the lensometer to McFarland and Monona meetings to recruit some workers, but did not get sufficient response.
Lions working on this committee have been Harlan Klipstein, Alex Reisdorf, John Bard, Dave Toussaint, John Esch (who worked until age 97), Glenn Holmes, Les Huseboe, Bob Fox, and Orv Shetney. Thayer Burnham and Ed Neese continue to work. Hall Otterback and Dale St. John work almost every week. Dale Mueller works when he can. Bob Bohn worked a long time, but had to quit for health reasons. Don Neviaser helps occasionally, and other members have also helped out.
During this time, Hal was also the Lions Tale editor. He periodically mentioned that the committee needed help, but with little success. One almost has to be retired to work at reading eye glass prescriptions for two or more hours plus travel time. The committee currently works at the M & I Bank at the intersection of Verona Road and Williamsburg Way. From the start, the committee has been collecting glasses from various locations around Madison and processing them.
About four years ago, Hal went to the Lions Camp at Rosholt to return the old fashioned lensometer and to get a new one, and to learn how to use it. He then held classes in Madison to teach our people and the Madison West people how to use it. A few months later, the rules for which glasses are kept or discarded were changed a lot. We used to read the prescription of every pair of glasses in the box, with very few exceptions. The glasses were put in a plastic bag with the prescription noted on the bag. Now, we discard about thirty to forty percent of the glasses we receive. We do have to put each pair in the lensometer to determine if the glasses are keepers or discards, significantly slowing down production.
Our contact at the Lions Camp is a volunteer who now only works on Monday mornings, Mr. Sharon Cherek (phone (877) 463-6953, ext 312). Our contact at the Columbia County Correctional Institution at Portage is Jim Keuter (phone (608) 742-9100 ext 9253). Jim has been talking about retiring to Florida.
When we run low on glasses, Hal calls three or four days in advance to be sure they have a supply of washed and sorted glasses. He then goes to Portage at 10:00am. He takes all the finished (processed) glasses that we have, plus glasses that have been collected (to be washed and sorted). He will get almost always ten plastic milk bottle crates to bring back for processing. Each crate has around 180 to 190 pair of glasses. Hal stores the collected glasses until he can deliver them to Portage.
Current collection box locations for Madison Central are:
Lenscrafters at East Towne, WalMart East, Shopko at East Towne, Shopko on Aberg Avenue, Wisconsin Vision on East Washington Avenue, Sears at East Towne, Goodwill on Sycamore Avenue, Meriter Hospital on South Park Street, Stark Company West Office, High Point Road, and the UW Eye Clinic East.
Collection box locations for Madison West are:
Woodmans West, UW Health on Mineral Point Road, Eye Contact on Mineral Point Road, Shopko on Mineral Point Road, Dean Care on Mineral Point Road, Sears West Towne, UW Health at Doctors Park, UW Health on South Park Street, and Lenscrafters West Towne.