CHICAGO—Prevent Blindness, the nation’s oldest non-profit eye health and safety organization, will hold its 13th annual “Eyes on Capitol Hill” advocacy day on Tuesday, July 17, in Washington, D.C. The organization along with its affiliates will bring together representative citizens to meet with members of Congress as well as their staffs to discuss vison issues and to request support for public health programs, according to an announcement from Prevent Blindness. Advocates specifically will ask elected officials to:

• Provide at least $3.3 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 to maintain vision and eye health efforts at the Vision Health Initiative (VHI) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

• Provide $3.5 million to the Maternal and Child Health Bureau at the Health Resources and Services Administration (MCHB-HRSA).

• Provide at least $4 million for the Glaucoma Project at CDC.

• Provide $800 million to the National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for FY 2019.

“Funding programs that help to protect vision and provide access to quality healthcare is an investment that not only saves money in the future, but improved vision makes an immediate impact for an individual- both socially and in productivity levels,” said Jeff Todd, president and CEO of Prevent Blindness. “Through our Eyes on Capitol Hill event, as well as our ongoing advocacy efforts throughout the year, we are working on behalf of all Americans to educate our nation’s leaders on the positive impact they have by providing these much-needed dollars.”

In addition to meeting with Congress, Prevent Blindness leadership also expects to meet with the office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar II to discuss opportunities for improving eye health across the country.

All of the Eyes on Capitol Hill delegates will attend the seventh annual Focus on Eye Health National Summit at the National Press Club on Wednesday, July 18. At the summit, Prevent Blindness will be presenting an official award to Congressional Vision Caucus co-chairs Rep. Gene Green (Texas) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Florida), in recognition of their years of dedicated service to improve vision health and protect sight.

For more information on Eyes on Capitol Hill or Prevent Blindness and its advocacy initiatives, please call (800) 331-2020 or click here.