Gift of Sight, Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 21, 1996

Local Lions share gift of sight with the world Lisa Ferguson Monday, Oct. 21, 1996 | 11:59 a.m. Helping others see clearly has become Mark Trinko's mission in life. Over the last four years, the Las Vegas car wash and U-Haul dealership owner has voluntarily made countless trips to Third World countries on behalf of the local Lions Club. He and a small team of other club members -- one is usually an optometrist or ophthalmologist -- trek into jungles, impoverished towns and villages six times a year. To its needy citizens they administer eye exams and distribute 2,000 pairs of donated, used prescription eyeglasses, which have been recycled and categorized by inmates at the Jean prison. They're often greeted by long lines of residents, sometimes up to 150 people a day, patiently waiting to receive the gift of sight. "It's the only reason I live," says Trinko, 37, tearfully recalling a few of the grateful faces he's met along the way. Like the teenage sweethearts in the Lithuanian orphanage. "This place was like Stalag 13," dank and without windows, he says. The couple's sight was so poor, "They had never seen each other. When we put those glasses on them ... I'll never forget it." More than once, "We've had the grandma who has never seen her grandkids. They just break down and cry." From sties to nearsightedness, astigmatism to cataracts, Trinko and his crew have encountered every eye ailment imaginable. In tiny Guatemalan towns that lack running water. In the leech-filled jungles of Bolivia -- wherever there is a need. These missions of mercy are a step toward the international Lions Club's goal of ridding the world of preventable blindness by the year 2,000. Three years ago, the organization raised $140 million for the cause worldwide. It plans to spend the sum through the turn of the century. Trinko's most recent trip -- to the poverty-stricken countryside of Ensenada, Mexico -- put the group one step closer to achieving its goal. Border crossings are a "pretty regular" event for Trinko. But this trek proved tougher than usual. He and accompanying optical technician Rex Defer, also a Las Vegas Lions member, spent several hours convincing Mexican "aduanas" (customs agents) in Tijuana that the special load was not contraband. Meanwhile, the local opticians who were to meet the pair in Ensenada to perform the exams got separated. They didn't make it to the two-day clinic. Neither did their equipment. "We were faced with the dilemma of, 'Do we tell all these people to go away because the real doctors didn't show up, or do we do what we know how to do?'" Trinko says. Luckily, he's been on enough of these trips to have learned the language, as well as the basics of an eye exam. "You learn Spanish in five minutes and you're an eye doctor in 10," he quips. Using antiquated equipment borrowed from the town's only optometrist (who was also a Lion), Trinko and Defer went to work determining, then matching, prescriptions for 260 children and adults. Not at all what the 23-year-old Defer, on his first trip, had expected. "I was thinking we were gonna go down and just give the glasses away, basically," he says. "I didn't know there were (supposed to be) any professionals going with us anyway. When I found out that we were going to be examining them ... it was kind of a shock." The surprise wore off, though, after he examined one young patient. Her eyesight was so poor that she could hardly see, let alone read. So instead of the standard lettered eye chart, Defer used a picture of a bear to gauge the clarity of her vision. "She had to have it right up against her face" to see it, he recalls. After fitting her with a pair of glasses, "She got so excited. Her eyes lit up and she said, 'I can see it far away. I can see it up close. I can see it everywhere.' "It brought tears to my eyes. That's when I said, 'I love this,' and I told Mark, 'I'm going on every one of these trips." Next stop: Jordon, in early November. (Trinko is looking for an optometrist and a technician to tag along.) Future trips are scheduled for Haiti, Slovania and Thailand. Unfortunately, Trinko and his group can't always help everyone on the spot. "At the end of a clinic, we have three piles of paper," he explains. "One pile are the happy customers, one pile are the ones who need surgery and one pile are the ones who need special prescriptions." Those "Coke bottle glasses" can be expensive, so if the area Lions Club can't afford to fill those prescriptions, Trinko takes them back to the U.S. and ships them later. Any leftover glasses are given to the area's Lions Club to distribute. There are a couple of options for those requiring surgery. A request can be made for a grant from the Lions Club headquarters to pay for surgery performed by doctors in their area, or they can be assisted by a team of traveling surgeons -- who work much like Trinko's team -- based in California. "Our goal is to teach each country and the local Lions Club to be self-sufficient and not depend on us," Trinko says. "We can send them eyeglasses till the cows come home ... but I can't always take doctors away from their offices." Still, he knows that every little bit makes a big difference. "When I was a kid, I used to think that nobody could change the world," Trinko says, "but I know that's not true. "I realized that we change the lives of these people we serve. With 1.4 million of us (Lions) in 182 countries trying to change the world, we can accomplish that. A lot of us ... feel like our calling, our mission, our gift, is to help the less fortunate in the world."