February 7th, 2005
By Russ Corey
Stephen Black wants to teach young people that volunteerism is more than a one-day affair. The program he created seems to be doing just that. Black, the grandson of the late U.S. District Judge Hugo Black, is the founder of “Impact: An Alabama Student Service Initiative.”
Impact is the first statewide nonprofit organization in Alabama dedicated to developing service-learning projects with select universities, junior colleges and technical schools in the state, according to the organization’s Web site.
One such project that has been well received on college campuses is the public health initiative, FocusFirst. The mission of FocusFirst is to provide a cost-effective direct response to vision problems of underprivileged children living in urban and rural poverty.
Black said that nationwide, when children’s eyes are screened, about 10 percent are found to have problems. The rate is even higher, about 17 percent, in poor areas, Black said.
To address the problem, Black conceived FocusFirst, which trains college students to go into poor areas and conduct screening.
Students participate in a four-hour training session and are taught to use a state-of-the-art portable digital photo-refraction imaging system. The system can transmit images of the children’s eyes directly to experts who analyze them for irregularities.
“The images are pretty amazing,” Black said.
So far, Black has five universities participating in FocusFirst, including the University of North Alabama.
In fact, a group of UNA students was the first to receive training. Of the 86 students trained so far, nine of them are from UNA, Black said.
About 1,200 children statewide have been screened for vision problems. Black said 235 of them were screened in Head Start programs in theFlorencearea, with another 130 scheduled for screenings over the next two weeks. Black said he hopes to have another 20-25 UNA students participating in the program following a second training session that will take place within the next three weeks.
“The bigger part is pointing out the difference between justice and charity for young people,” Black said. “Young people are very good at charitable volunteerism, but young people right now haven’t really connected civil obligation to citizenship or what I call justice.”
Black said states do a good job screening children in the school systems, but it’s better to screen children when they’re 2 to 4 years old.
Joining UNA in the program is the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Athens State University, Birmingham Southern and the University of West Alabama. This semester Black said he will try to establish programs at Samford University, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama A&M University, Jacksonville State University, Huntington College in Montgomery and Auburn University Montgomery.
Tammy Jacques, UNA associate director of Student Life for Organizations and Activities, said three students decided to adopt FocusFirst as their project. Kattie Fletcher, Christy Sherrill and LeeAnna Harris attended a women’s leadership seminar at the Leading Edge Institute.
“One responsibility was they had to write a grant and get grant money and actually implement some type of program on their campus,” Jacques said.
The three women selected FocusFirst and recruited other students. The nine students received their training in the fall. Jacques said the group received $900 in grant money that will be used to pay for the imaging system, which Black said costs about $3,500.
“We’re still looking at ways to raise money,” Jacques said.
Fletcher said the screening they’ve done has been in pre-schools and Head Start programs. Some eye problems, she said, can be corrected 100 percent if they are caught early enough.
On Wednesday, a team from UNA screened 23 children at the Little Angel Day School inFlorence, FocusFirst volunteer Josh Payne said. Payne the UNA team and two groups from Athens State University screened 65 children Wednesday.
Fletcher said most of their participation has come from fraternities and sororities. The women, now juniors, expect the program to continue after they graduate.
“Hopefully, the next group of girls who go to Leading Edge Institute will pick it up,” Fletcher said.
