Aerie Pharmaceuticals Joins the ASCRS Foundation in Raising Funds to Provide Eye Care for the World’s Neediest Patients

Aerie Pharmaceuticals announced that it is matching, $1 for $1, the first $25,000 donated by attendees at the 2018 ASCRS-ASOA Annual Meeting, being held in Washington DC, from April 13-17, to the ASCRS Foundation’s charitable eye care programs.

“The ASCRS Foundation is amplifying a long tradition of humanitarian eye care provided by the ophthalmic community by creating new fundraising initiatives that allow many more ASCRS-ASOA members to support this sight-saving work directly,” Vicente Anido Jr., PhD, Chairman and CEO of Aerie Pharmaceuticals, said in a company news release. “We are proud to join the ASCRS Foundation in celebrating this commitment and to help increase access to eye care for those most in need, here in the United States and around the world, by doubling the donations made at this meeting.”

The Give Sight Wall

To encourage contributions and showcase the significant impact that the generosity of ASCRS-ASOA members has already had, the ASCRS Foundation has mounted a Give Sight wall display in the meeting’s exhibit hall.

The wall features photos of patients whose sight has been restored through humanitarian eye care programs. Attendees are invited to take one of these Face of Need photos with them, which includes a reusable magnetic frame, when they make their donation. Donors are also asked to take a polaroid selfie, and place it on the wall, helping to cover it in Faces of Generosity. Each blank square on the Give Sight Wall contains the first name and location of one of 200+ Operation Sight patients currently awaiting cataract surgery.

ASCRS-ASOA members and meeting attendees who are not able to visit the exhibit hall can still have their donation matched by giving through the end of Tuesday, April 17, at www.ascrsfoundation.org/give