WESTERVILLE, Ohio—Optometrists are often community leaders and a new program from EyeCarePro has been designed to help practices play a role in their local community’s environmental initiatives with Project Green Eyes. The program streamlines how ECPs and their staff can take part in such initiatives with a range of resources, including marketing materials and social media tools which can help shine a spotlight on the issue and facilitate execution.

Professional VisionCare with offices in Westerville and Johnstown, Ohio, conducted the inaugural pilot with EyeCarePro to great success.

“The idea was to provide a program that optometrists can use to engage clients in eyecare in a creative way,” said Daniel Rostenne, CEO of EyeCarePro. “The Green Eyes Project was created with a lot of flexibility so that it could meet the needs of many practices in a way they feel most comfortable. Professional VisionCare took the program in a direction we had not anticipated—a public-private partnership to impact an environmental problem in their community.”


(L to R) Cindy Hewitt, Anita Gardner and Charlotte Davis.

Taking the lead from EyeCarePro, the staff at Professional VisionCare decided to donate trees and to engage their communities to help plant them. But where? The team contacted the city officials only to find that the city had a watershed problem and new trees where exactly the solution they were looking for.

“When we saw the project taking off, we approached city officials about a location to plant the 225 trees we had collected,” said Raquel Miller, practice manager for the group. “The city was delighted and immediately identified a place in need.”

The city selected the Spring Run watershed and helped the Professional VisionCare team notify residents by sending a postcard from the City of Westerville outlining the program. All residents are being encouraged to attend the event and receive a tree sapling that they will plant with the help of the Professional VisionCare staff. There are roughly 400 to 1,000 residents who are affected by the watershed as well as countless animals.


Among those planting, members of the Practice VisionCare staff
and family included (l to r) Cindy Hewitt, Maddie Davis, Caden Davis,
Andy Davis, Emily Gardner and Grant Hewitt.

Professional VisionCare promoted the fall planting event throughout the summer positioning themselves once again as community leaders. When the planting season rolled around in October, staff and community members gathered at the watershed area and spent a Saturday planting trees.

“We do a lot of education but this is the first time we have organized such a hands on effort in the community,” stated Carole Burns, OD, a partner in Professional VisionCare. “The Green Eyes Project was designed to motivate the community to get their eyes examined and when they did, we donated a tree to be planted in the community. This has been a great way of opening people’s eyes to the environmental issues right here in Westerville.”

“We have worked with EyeCarePro for many years now and this is yet another example of their creativity to help eyecare professionals connect in positive ways with their communities,” stated Miller.


Ollie Shipley gets into the spirit.

“We will be expanding our reach after the first of the year to practices in other communities across the country,” said Michael Pote, COO of EyeCarePro. “This program can be very impactful but requires planning and management to pull all of the pieces together. Interested practices can sign up on our website.”

To support such projects, EyeCarePro’s program includes

  • A complete Project Green Eyes White paper with instructions on how to localize this effort to the community and connect it to the goals of your practice.
  • A badge for your website and Facebook page with a click through to a landing page full of information.
  • An eblast to send to customers.
  • Postcard graphics to print for point of care distribution or mailing.
  • A Facebook header and posts.
  • A local press release to distribute to the media.
  • A poster to print for the office and to use around town.

Practices can find out more about being a Project Green Eyes practice here.