Specialized eye care for children could get a boost thanks to a new charity in Tarrant County.
TCU head baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle founded the RB Eye Foundation, a non-profit organization earlier this year. The foundation seeks to raise money for support for patient care, diagnostic testing, and medical research for vision-threatening disease in children.
“Our goal is in the next 18 months is to raise $1.5 million,” Schlossnagle said. He said his experience with his own children’s vision issues paritally motivated his decision to start the foundation so others wouldn’t have to go through the same troubles his family did.
“I’ve been through lot of things with my children and trying to diagnosis and deal with some of the things they have,” Schlossnagle said. “We’ve been all over the United States trying to figure that out.”
RB Eye launched its website the first week of September and already has a growing base of followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook. Both the Twitter and the Facebook page offer visitors the opportunity to donate to the RB Eye Foudnation.
RB Eye will host a ladies tennis tournament, dinner and auction on October 15th to start their fund raising efforts.
“It’d be great to raise the money in one night,” Schlossnagle said. “The first event is to kick off the event itself and make everybody aware of what we’re doing and just spread the word.”
The foundation will support funds to the Child Vision Center of Fort Worth. The Pediatric Eye Specialists, a group of physicians specializing in pediatric ophthalmology, founded the center.
“Somebody approached me about starting a foundation to help pediatric vision here in Fort Worth and we are close to the specific group of doctors,” Schlossnagle said.
Karl Henson, Director of the Child Vision Center of Fort Worth, said they were pleasantly surprised to find out about the foundation and the work it would be doing for the center.
“Fort Worth is a strong city and a proud city and it deserves this,” Henson said.
Henson said the RB Eye foundation would help Fort Worth be able to offer specialized testing and care for pediatric ophthalmology. “That’s news your want to know now,” Henson said. “You don’t want to wait and you don’t want to drive 40 miles to get it.
Schlossnagle said RB Eye was trying to do something different to raise funds and the ladies tennis tournament was just that. Schlossnagle said his wife, Kami,plays tennis often so the event made sense.
“When you’re doing stuff like this you’re always going to access your circle of friends or influence and try and generate interest and get people there so we thought it would be pretty cool.” Schlossnagle said.
