1,500 pairs of glasses have been donated by Specsavers Ópticas in Calpe to underprivileged people across the world.

The Lions Club of Calpe & Benissa picked up a total of 11 boxes of glasses from the store on the 31st of May to be donated to people in need in more than 30 countries. A pair of glasses are an unaffordable luxury to many people in the developing world and can literally change people’s lives by allowing them to return to work or studies.

Thanks to donations of unwanted glasses from Specsavers customers over the last 18 months, more than 1,500 people will be given a pair of glasses suitable for them by Lions Club volunteers.

These glasses will be sent to the Melvin Jones Glasses Recycling Centre in Alicante to be checked, cleaned, sorted and labelled with their prescriptions. This centre handles approximately 100,000 pairs of glasses each year, which are then shipped all over the world, with a focus on Africa, Asia and South America where glasses are hard to come by.

Specsavers Ópticas has been working with the Lions Club in Spain since the first Spanish Specsavers store opened in Javea in April 2006 and started their long-standing collaboration with the Calpe and Benissa Lions. There are thousands of pairs of glasses donated annually from all nine stores in Spain, which are all processed at the Melvin Jones Centre.

If you have unwanted or old glasses, please drop them into Specsavers Ópticas in Avenida Ejércitos Españoles No. 6 in Calpe, or your nearest Specsavers Ópticas store and they will make sure they get to the people who really need them. For more information about Specsavers Ópticas visit www.specsavers.es

Photo caption – Store director of Specsavers Ópticas Claus Weger presents over 1,500 pairs of glasses to Robert Mclean from the Lions Club of Calpe & Benissa