Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kate McKearn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kate, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
During my last year as a teacher, I taught fifth grade English Language Arts at a turnaround school in St. Louis. Jayla was one of my students, and initially she was easily frustrated by reading and didn’t show much interest. With time, she became immersed in the historical fiction we read in class, especially the book “Esperanza Rising,” which is about a young girl navigating a number of barriers and finding her way in the world. Jayla fell in love with reading through this book and it was a joy to see that transformation.
At the end of that school year I decided to move into a new career opportunity – my first position at Eye Thrive – that would ultimately allow me to reach and help more children than I ever could in the classroom. While on-site during a summer Mobile Vision Clinic visit to a branch of the St. Louis County Library – then a new partnership – I saw a familiar face on-board. It took a few moments for us to recognize each other, but it was Jayla, who was at the library returning and picking up books. She was able to get an eye exam and glasses that day through our partnership.
It was heartwarming to catch up with her and hear that she had become an even more avid reader since her time in my classroom – so much so that she was regularly visiting the library during her summer break. Her interests had expanded to other genres, but she also shared that she had re-read her still favorite book, “Esperanza Rising,” multiple times.
It was a full circle moment for me to see the impact that I had made for Jayla in the classroom, and the continued, expanded impact I was making for kids in my role at Eye Thrive. Without the glasses they need, too many children are unable to cultivate a love of reading, even with the most committed of teachers, because they don’t have access to vision services.
We often tout that our work has an immediate, measurable impact in the lives of our kids, and that was imprinted for me that day on the Mobile Vision Clinic with Jayla.
Kate, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Prior to joining Eye Thrive, I spent 12 years as an inner-city classroom teacher and school leader. My deep personal sense of responsibility to create a more equitable public school system was solidified during my experience in Chicago Public Schools with Teach for America. The barriers our students face both at school and at home are undeniable.
While my role has shifted from the classroom, my career goals have remained consistent. Ultimately, I am dedicated to ensuring all children, regardless of race, gender, culture or need, have equal opportunities for success.
The ability to navigate the world with clear vision shouldn’t be a luxury, but Eye Thrive recognizes the extensive barriers – including expense, time, and transportation – that prevent too many families from accessing eye care for their children. Their flagship program, a Mobile Vision Clinic, was developed to effectively eliminate these barriers by providing free comprehensive eye exams and new prescription glasses made and delivered on-site to kids at their schools and community centers, in less than an hour. Since the launch of the Mobile Vision Clinic in 2013, Eye Thrive has partnered with dozens of school and community partners year after year and provided more than 24,000 free comprehensive eye exams and 27,000 pairs of free prescription glasses to kids in need.
As a uniquely mission-driven organization, Eye Thrive believes in meeting every child exactly where they are, going above and beyond to provide the best continuity of care to populations that are more likely to have negative interactions with healthcare providers. Kids are greeted by a positive, trauma-informed member of the team, and encouraged to empower themselves by asking questions and making their own frame decisions from the wide selection of designer choices on-board.
The Mobile Vision Clinic’s additional features and wraparound services include: school vision screenings to identify children with possible vision impairment ahead of Mobile Vision Clinic visits, duplicate pairs of glasses for children with identified additional needs and/or high prescriptions, referrals to specialist providers – with staff follow up to navigate scheduling – for children identified as having eye health or vision concerns that need additional care, and unlimited, no-questions-asked replacement glasses shipped directly to the home or school of any child that breaks or loses their glasses.
I am deeply proud of the way our team continually strives to serve our kids in the most effective, efficient ways possible.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Eye Thrive is a nonprofit that provides essential vision services to kids in need throughout the region. One of my top priorities from day one was to foster an organizational culture that meets every single child exactly where they are. Our kids face any number of challenges we can only begin to imagine, and they can bring those stressors to school with them. I want their experience with our team to be a bright spot – the very best part of their day.
Over the years we have adjusted our programming, participated in trauma awareness trainings, reorganized our team, and invested in additional technology – all to ensure our kids are our top priority and that they have positive interactions with us as healthcare providers.
As a team, we have this common set of goals: to provide the very best quality of care to each and every one of our kids, and to operate effectively and efficiently so that we can serve as many kids as possible. This places priority on our ability to work as a team, and keeps our morale high, because we are all working towards the same thing.
Having a real understanding that our kids have good days, bad days, and everything in between has helped our team see each other’s humanity, too, and extend the same energy and patience we give our kids to our colleagues.
We all rely on our teammates, and I am proud to say that our team really does step up to support each other in any number of ways, knowing that each person is critical to our success as an organization and we all work equally hard to fulfill our mission. I attribute this to our organization being uniquely mission-driven and bringing it back to our kids every single day.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Our child-first policy is what sets us apart, and why we are the trusted provider of essential vision services for kids in the region. We go beyond the basics: from the services we provide, to the processes in place for our school and community partners, to the environment we have curated on-board the Mobile Vision Clinic. We are about so much more than glasses.
The ability to navigate the world with clear vision shouldn’t be a luxury, but Eye Thrive recognizes the extensive barriers – including expense, time, and transportation – that prevent too many families from accessing eye care for their children. Their flagship program, a Mobile Vision Clinic, was developed to effectively eliminate these barriers by providing free comprehensive eye exams and new prescription glasses made and delivered on-site to kids at their schools and community centers, in less than an hour.
For Eye Thrive, growing our clientele isn’t about need – that will, unfortunately, never go away. For us, it’s about finding ways we can fine tune, innovate, expand, and grow to serve more kids, and in even better ways. We are actively building our organizational capacity through a three-year strategic plan that is guiding our team towards the launch of a second Mobile Vision Clinic that will allow us to double the number of kids we can serve each year while maintaining our commitment to individualized, top-notch care.
One way we go a step further is by prioritizing underrepresented, high need communities. We do this through a tiered scheduling system that uses enrollment in the federally subsidized school lunch program and/or enrollment in Medicaid – key indicators of poverty – to identify communities with the highest needs.
Vision impairment is one of the most common disabling conditions among children in the United States, affecting 25% of students (Vision Impact Institute, 2012). Early detection can prevent more than 80% of all vision impairment, but for the low-income children we serve, the detection of vision issues are limited by an inability to access services. In fact, 90% of low-income children who need glasses don’t have them. The problem is two to three times worse for Black and Hispanic youth (Versant, 2019), the majority of our kids.
Within the neighborhoods we serve, we establish, cultivate, and maintain cooperative working relationships with our school and community partners. It is our goal to make the process of working with Eye Thrive easy while providing exceptional care for our mutual kids. Without successful relationships, there would be no Eye Thrive, and we certainly wouldn’t have an extensive waiting list each school year of schools and groups that want to work with us. Expanding our reach requires a level of trust and mutual respect; something we work hard to achieve and maintain with all our community partners.
Our kids have access to the full spectrum of Eye Thrive services. From in-school vision screenings, to comprehensive eye exams and glasses made and delivered on-site in less than an hour, to referrals for follow up care as needed, duplicate pairs for our kids with high prescriptions or identified additional needs, to our always free, unlimited, no-questions-asked replacement program for kids that lose or break their glasses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://eyethrive.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eye_thrive/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eyethrive
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eyethrive/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Eye_Thrive
Image Credits
Headshot: Fresh Art Photography