Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

EAST Lab students help with vision mission

Three members of the Prescott High School EAST Lab class were involved in a project with long-term results.

The trio of Jody Almand, Josh Brown and Manuel Stuart designed a program for Central Baptist Church's Vision Mission in Mexico.

Each year, members of CBC go to Mexico and provide eyeglasses for the natives.

An optometrist tests the Mexicans and gives out the prescriptions needed. In the past, the glasses were in boxes and volunteers had to search through the boxes manually to find the right prescription.

Having to look for the glasses by hand resulted in only about 100 to 150 people getting new spectacles, as there were 34 boxes with glasses three layers deep in each one.

All this changed with some hard work by the EAST Lab students. Under Stuart's leadership, they designed a computer program database, complete with a menu which shows what box each pair of glasses is in, along with the prescription and type of frames.

"We had to type in 5,000 pair of glasses," Stuart said, "but the work was shared through the network." This meant everyone in the class participated and keyed in information about the glasses.

The students were able to key in about 500-600 pair of glasses daily, with this portion of the project taking about a week and a half.

Almand, Brown and Stuart worked to develop a maintenance menu for the program to show the inventory. As a pair of glasses is given away, it's removed from the database.

The three took this project to the EAST Lab conference, but failed to win, as the judges said it had no local impact.

Almand said the judges were under the impression the project had been assigned, and wasn't the team's idea.

In actuality, no assignment was given, though PHS Principal Carroll Purtle asked the EAST Lab students if they could help with the problem.

The trio worked on the project a total of three months getting it perfected. The program includes a search engine and template where information can be downloaded.

Stuart, who did the bulk of the design, said he used the Access program to build the database from. This meant he had to learn Access first.

"It was a mind-blower, a real beast," Stuart said.

"It was a learning experience," Almand said. "I enjoyed working on it. Keying in the data was the easiest part, and we learned 10-key quick, because we had to encode using the number pad."

Almand said their report was done in hard copy as well, with it turning out to be 177 pages.

The entries, he said, had to be able to show the left and right spheres of the lenses, whether or not the glasses were bifocals or single-vision along with the type of frame, either small, medium or large.

"Now all they have to do is maintain it," he said.

Unfortunately, Stuart, Brown and Almand won't be able to see how effective the program they developed works in the field. This is because the mission work is normally done in October, and all three will be in college this fall.

All agreed, though, if there's a problem with the program they'll be more than willing to help get it straightened out. To make it easier for those who will be using the program, they made a handbook showing how to use it.

"We made sure it was simple and user friendly," Almand said. "We've done two or three other project since then."

Stuart said Brown helped keep everyone together and working toward the final goal, though there were times toward the end of the project when the situation became chaotic.

Jason Himes, the EAST Lab instructor, said it was a good project and the class worked hard on it. "It will serve a lot of people, and the database was made from scratch.

"They amaze me," he continued. "This is the biggest project we've had so far, and will affect so many."

Stuart said the program has been designed so it can be networked between two computers and, thereby, increase the speed of searching for glasses so more people can be helped.

Purtle said the Vision Mission began in 1989-90 through Central Baptist Church which has a medical mission in Aquismon, Mexico, about 250 miles north of Mexico City.

This is an 8-12 hour trip from the Mexico-U.S. border, he said, being more than 1,100 miles one way.

Dr. Audie Teague is the optometrist and does laser work and pathology, Purtle said, with Dr. Lewis Pearson performing cataract surgery as needed.

According to Purtle, there are two full-time doctors, a general practitioner and a full-time dentist at the mission, along with a small school for students interested in medicine.

The clinic has two operating rooms, with the grounds having a house built by the mission for families of those who have to stay overnight.

The campus also has dormitories for boys and girls, a nurse's dorm and a dorm for married students, along with classrooms.

The missionaries are working to finish building a new pharmacy and reception building.

Most people who work at the school and clinic, Purtle said, live in the mountains and are of Indian descent.

The 5,000 pair of glasses, he said, are at the clinic now, and the volunteers must be particular with the prescriptions, making sure the people get the right ones.

"It got complicated trying to keep it all together," he said. "We had to go through the catalogs by hand, but now, with the program, we can find the glasses in half the time by cross referencing the inventory quickly.

"We have a wide variance in what we needed, and that's why we have such a large inventory. We hope to be able to serve 250 a day now."

Those who receive the glasses are not charged for the services or the spectacles.

"It's all done free," Purtle said. "It's like old home week when we go down. I started going when we began with the glasses."

In a normal year, he said, the volunteers can handle 300-320 customers, but with this program, the number will be increased to around 250 per day, unless some need surgery.

"We'll have people start lining up the day before we get there," he said, "to get their number. Some will wait for three days, and others have a six-hour walk down the mountain."

The mission clinic, he said, is nondenominational, though the teaching part is done in conjunction with a local Baptist church.

Of all the volunteers, he said, cooks have the longest days. They start at 4 a.m. and usually get done sometime around 9 p.m.

The eye team goes down in October when the weather is cooler.

"We've pulled all-nighters," Purtle said. "It's nothing to work 18-20 hours a day."

Purtle said he's normally there two or three days with the doctors, and invites anyone who may be interested in joining the mission project to see what they could do to help.