As you make your end-of-the-year contributions for tax purposes, please consider spreading your good fortune with ORBIS.

At present, 37 million people around the world are blind, yet 28 million don’t have to be. They’re blind simply because they lack access to quality, affordable eye care — something we take for granted in industrialized societies.

Contributing even a small amount will help fund construction of a rural eye clinic in Ethiopia, a pediatric ophthalmology wing in India, clinical training in Vietnam and Bangladesh, or sight-restoring surgery — such as cataract removal — in China or Latin America.

Consider what your donation could provide:

• $10,000 funds a 12-month, hands-on training fellowship for an ophthalmologist at a center of excellence in Asia or Africa.
  
  
• $2,500 supplies an ophthalmologist, who operates on cataracts, a set of high-quality surgical instruments that could last 10 to 20 years.
  
  
• $1,000 funds in-country training of an ophthalmic nurse in managing operating room standards and infection prevention measures.
  
  
• $750 trains and equips an ophthalmic nurse to provide primary eye care services and surgery in rural areas to prevent corneal-scarring caused by infectious trachoma.
  
  
• $350 covers the cost of distributing enough antibiotic to protect 500 people from the blinding disease trachoma. (The antibiotic itself is generously donated by Pfizer.)
  
  
• $250 supports organizing a rural eye camp to examine 500 adults for cataracts.
  
  
• $100 allows three people to receive cataract surgery to restore or improve their sight.
  
  
• $75 underwrites the cost of surgery to correct the wayward eye of a child (strabismus), which could lead to permanent vision impairment if left untreated.

Your generosity could turn a bleak and marginal existence into one of hope and opportunity. Please help restore sight and prevent blindness in developing countries. Please give generously so that others may see.