Naperville Lions Club gives $25,000 to fight against blindness
In the fight against blindness, Naperville Noon Lions Club members may have picked a key time to make one of their largest single donations.
The club gave $25,000 to the Foundation Fighting Blindness, which aims to end blindness caused by retinal diseases.
The donation comes as the family of Gordon Gund, the foundation's chairman and co-founder, has committed to matching all donations nationwide of $25,000 or more until the end of June, 2016 in an effort to raise at least $50 million for research.
It also comes as three human clinical trials researching blindness have been announced since March, when only a handful have been conducted during the last few decades, said John Cornielle of DeKalb, who is a volunteer and part-time fundraiser for the Foundation Fighting Blindness and accepted the Naperville Lions Club donation on Tuesday.
The Naperville club became so far "the only Lions Club to respond to this incredible opportunity to cure blindness," Cornielle said.
Bob Hull, the Naperville group's president, said the club gave the money to support people who have low vision or no vision because of inherited retinal diseases.
Club members have noticed some promising progress in research and wanted to contribute to the cause using money raised in four main campaigns: the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, a summer raffle, a fall candy sale and funnel cake sales at Naperville Ribfest.
When Steve Hertzberg was president of the club in the 1980s, it had more members but less fundraising capacity.
"These are the kind of things we couldn't even think of doing back in 1988," Hertzberg said about the $25,000 donation. "It's very fulfilling."
Cornielle said the Lions' donation will be used to support research such as efforts to find the best way to help people whose photoreceptor cells, the cells that convert light into signals the brain interprets as images, have failed or never worked correctly.
Some studies are using stem cells to create healthy photoreceptors, while others are looking for ways to replace them or help vision-impaired people see through another means.
"The support is making a huge difference," Cornielle said.
When Cornielle heard about the club's intent to donate an amount large enough to be matched by the Gund family, he said it brought him to tears because he's so passionate about solving the mystery of blindness.
"This is absolutely going to take place. Blindness is going to be cured," Cornielle said. "Nobody knows where it's going to happen, we just know it is going to happen."