SAUGUS — The Lions Club continued its work toward helping find a cure for eye blindness by raising funds for eye research.
Tony Speziale, who just ended his presidency at the club after three years, said the club’s model is, “We serve,” and their signature charity has been eye research.
“We also do a lot of community services and giving back in the form of scholarships,” Speziale said.
Speziale has been a member of the Saugus Lions Club for 25 years, joining because he felt the work they were doing for the community was important and “just a good thing to do.”
The Lions raised more than $4,000 canning for eye research this year and donated a total of $16,000 to the cause. They also funded another $3,000 in scholarships.
“There are several ways we raise money. Canning is our annual fundraiser. Another one is we have an annual comedy night, which will be in October at Prince Pizza. During the year, we also had a couple of Beetlejuice concerts over at Kowloon that did very well, and we have our calendar raffle,” he said.
Speziale also highlighted some of the work being done to help fight blindness.
“I just have to say that the reason why is the fight is to end blindness. There are many, many things out there right now that will blow you away. For example, a bionic eye where they actually put computer chips into your retina and attach it to the optic nerve. That’s now in human trials. Another one out there is regrowing eye cells that were killed off from head injuries and blunt force trauma. Or a simple copy and paste of a gene that could end severe light sensitivity,” he said. “You’re starting to see it happen.”
