Denise Mogil, director of professional services at Costco, welcomes the crowd at last year’s EyeRock concert.
Ned Matura of Ned Matura Photography (l) and Pete Heyward of ClearVision Optical perform with the EyeRock Band in 2014.
NEW YORK—When you think about volunteering for an organization that provides free prescription eyeglasses to the needy, you don’t think of scheduling practice sessions, making up set lists of classic rock ’n’ roll songs and renting drums and guitar amps. But that’s exactly what the members of the EyeRock Band have been doing to prepare for the EyeRock concert on March 21 at the Hard Rock Café in NYC’s Times Square.

EyeRock is a benefit concert to raise money for New Eyes for the Needy, a non-profit organization that has been providing eyeglasses to the poor for over 80 years. It comes together as a result of many hours of hard work from a team of dedicated individuals in the optical industry.

“The benefit concert takes months of preparation,” said Stephen Santinelli of Santinelli International, producer of the benefit concert. “We have over 30 singers and musicians from the optical industry who dedicate their time to plan, practice and perform for this great cause. It takes months to make this happen.”

Four different groups of musicians perform classic rock n’ roll songs. In addition to Santinelli, the band leaders who coordinate this incredible effort are Bob Stein of National Vision, Andrew Karp of Jobson Medical Information, Stephen Fournier of Kingdom Eyewear and David Salk of e-Clips.

“The concert runs longer than a Bruce Springsteen concert,” said Bob Stein jokingly. “It takes a lot of coordination to make it such an enjoyable evening and it’s all for such a good cause. Who said you can’t support philanthropy and have fun at the same time?” As leading sponsor for this year’s event, National Vision is inviting hundreds of optometry students to the event and including a few of the students to perform with the band.

Lisa Loeb, a Grammy-nominated singer and also founder and creator of Lisa Loeb Eyewear Collection from Classique Eyewear, will also be donating her time to perform that evening.

In addition to the hard work of the band members, numerous other individuals and organizations are dedicating their time and resources to make this a successful event. This year Lee Birnbaum, Southeast regional manager at ClearVision Optical, is heading the effort to solicit items from throughout the optical industry for the evening’s silent auction.

For the second year in a row, the MC of the evening will be Bill Gerber, founder and creative director of the Optical Marketing Group. Additionally, Denise Mogil, director of professional services at Costco, has worked with New Eyes for the Needy to involve many optical industry companies in this year’s event. “Denise has worked tirelessly to help serve the optically underserved and has been instrumental to the success of this event,” said Jean Gajano, executive director of New Eyes for the Needy.

“New Eyes is so grateful for the outpouring of support it has received from so many in the industry, including The Vision Council, Reed Exhibitions and all of our other sponsors—we couldn’t do it without their commitment to serving the optically underserved.”

The EyeRock concert will begin at 8:30 pm March 21 and ends at 12:30 am. Tickets are available at www.new-eyes.org.


EyeRock Sponsors Step Up to Help New Eyes for the Needy

The sponsors of the EyeRock concert represent a diverse mix of optical industry companies: National Vision, Transitions Optical, Davis Vision, Jobson Medical Information, Marcolin, Suja Juice, The Vision Council/Reed Exhibitions, Aerial Vision Int’l, Charmant USA Inc., ClearVision Optical, Essilor USA, Eyewear by R.O.I., Marco, The McGee Group, MCQ, Modo Eyewear, Nouveau Eyewear, Shamir, Shop2Care, United Healthcare Vision, Younger Optics, Zyloware Eyewear.