Dr. Laura Pels, optometrist at Coppell Vision Center, was recently honored by the Coppell Lions Club for her generous service to the Lions Vision Clinic program held every November. The presentation was made by Lions President Fred Conger at Dr. Pels office on Monday, May 18.
Each year the Coppell Lions, in association with area school nurses and para-professionals, hold a Vision Clinic for children that have been identified as having sight difficulties, but are in a situation where they cannot afford eyewear. The Lions Sight and Tissue Foundation furnishes a mobile eye exam center that travels to the location, but the local Lions club must arrange for eye professionals to actually perform the exams. Dr. Pels graciously volunteered for the Vision Clinic and then did more.
“She came to us and offered to give eye exams to any children that the Lions Club identified at her office as long as we could schedule them. That’s an incredible act of service for kids that somehow fall through for one reason or another when we have our Vision Clinic,” Lion President Conger remarked.
Dr. Pels provided eye exams to qualified Coppell students for the Coppell Lions Club, both during its annual Vision Clinic and in subsequent months as the need arose. The Lion Club provides frames and lenses for the students free of charge as a result of its Eyeglass Collection Project that has been provided for decades. Through donations that are collected from fundraising the Lions organization pays for new frames and lenses for the students.
As Coppell Lions Club President Fred Conger presented Dr. Pels with a plaque commemorating her service, he said, “We greatly appreciate your generous help. As Lions, we are very interested both in promoting good vision and in helping children. Thank you for helping us in our efforts to ensure that every qualified Coppell student with a need for eye glasses can be served.”
Dr. Pels was valedictorian of her class at the University of Houston College of Optometry and was subsequently Contact Lens Director in the Ophthalmology Department at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. She and her husband, Kevin, moved to Coppell in 1983 where she worked part time while staying home with her three children. She helped open her first office in 1991 under the name of Ousley and Pels Eye Associates. The practice became Coppell Vision Center in 1999.