Our Foundation


Richmond Eye & Ear Foundation

History of the Richmond Eye Hospital
Virginia Fox Beveridge, the daughter of James and Amanda Crisp Fox, was born in the capital city of the state for which she was named. Her date of birth is not a matter of record. Her father served in the Confederate Army with the rank of captain, as officer in charge of construction of war vessels. The Fox family resided in a splendid home on Richmond’s Church Hill. 
 
“Ginny” as she was called by all who knew her, was married in old St. Mark’s Church to Stephen Taylor Beveridge, son of John and Lucinda Carter Beveridge. Shortly after the marriage, Mr. Beveridge established the wholesale grain firm of S.T. Beveridge and Company which he headed as president until his death in 1939. There were no children of Virginia and Stephen Beveridge. 
 
It is believed that Mrs. Beveridge was stricken with blindness in her later years. Although Mr. and Mrs. Beveridge traveled extensively and pleasurably for years, at this time, the journeys were always in search of a cure. An operation performed on her eyes partially restored her vision. She was so grateful for her small release from darkness that she resolved to make possible the most advanced-design institution where unsurpassed surgical techniques might be obtained by others like herself – even those persons unable to pay. This was the foundation of her dream, and the foundation on which Richmond Eye Hospital was built.
 
Richmond Eye Hospital, including ear, nose, and throat services, opened for patients on May 19, 1952.
 
Formation of the Richmond Eye & Ear Foundation
The mission of the Richmond Eye and Ear Foundation is to receive and maintain a fund or funds to use exclusively for the benefit of its charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes . Two committees of the Foundation supporting its mission are:
 
  • Education & Outreach Committee –Partnering with community organizations, objectives are to oversee educational and grant-making activities in the fields of ophthalmology, otolaryngology, and oral maxillofacial surgery. The grant-making focuses on underserved, uninsured, or medically indigent children and adults in need of services ; improving access and outreach , providing healthcare education and/or preventive care. 
  • Scientific Research Committee – It’s main objective is to solicit and examine proposals for medical and research grants in the fields of ophthalmology and otolaryngology; providing start-up funds for new or novel ideas that will advance medical knowledge and treatment options for future patients.

 

Funding for Community Outreach - To date: $888,689

  • Better Housing Coalition- To support the expansion of the Senior Health Initiative to include auditory and visual care services, including financial assistance for hearing aids and glasses and visual and auditory health screenings.
  • Bon Secours Richmond Health Care Foundation – To support CARE-A-VAN’s purchase of a titmus machine and audiometer, otoscopes, and ophthalmoscopes, and increased staff time of the pediatric nurse practitioner to complete comprehensive visual and hearing screenings.
  • Children’s Hospital -   To support the Pediatric Dental Program, to include care of children with maxillofacial deformities in clinical and surgical settings.
  • Commonwealth Catholic Charities -    To provide reconditioned hearing aids
  • Central Virginia Health Services – To support the purchase of a retinoscope and training for staff at the Appomattox Area Health & Wellness Center on use of equipment and reading of scan results for uninsured patients.
  • Chattering Children - To provide financial assistance to parents of hearing impaired children that require auditory-verbal therapy.
  • Cross Over Ministry, Inc.   To support the Vision Care Program, including the purchase of new eye equipment and costs associated with the renovation and establishment of two fully equipped vision exam rooms
  • Daily Planet – To support the establishment of the Eye Care Center within the Planet’s Health Care Clinic to serve the eye care needs of the homeless in Richmond
  • Prevent Blindness Mid-Atlantic - To provide school nurses with training and national certification as certified children’s vision screeners
  • Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic- To provide education materials, equipment, and training for the blind and/or visually impaired students.
  • Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center - To support the financial assistance program enabling families the opportunity to receive hearing screenings.
  • Special Olympics - To support Health Athletes Initiative providing health screenings for athletes attending the Summer Games
  • St. James the Less Free Clinic  - To support the purchase of an optometric exam chair and eye clinic supplies.
  • Virginia Voice for the Print Handicapped – To provide support for the agency to provide printed material – newspapers, magazines, books, and other publications – to blind and severely visually and physically handicapped individuals in Central Virginia.
  • Challenge Discovery Projects, Inc. - To support the creation of the Parent-Child Advocate Program to provide outreach services, resource development and referral services for children and their families who are underserved, low-income, and who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf blind or late deafened. 

 

Current Funding for Scientific Research

 Funding for VCU:

o    5/05 - $50,000 - Evan R. Reiter, M.D.- Assessment of smell and taste impairment in patients undergoing treatment for head & neck cancer

o    8/08 - $16,000 - Kelley Dodson, M.D.. – Antimicrobial prophylaxis for fractures of the maxillary sinus

o    1/10 - $44,864 - Arti Pandya, M.D. – Early Detection and Intervention of Congenital Cytomegalovirus Associated Hearing Loss

o    8/08 - $37,300 - Chris Leffler, M.D.- Intraocular pressure response to Timolol with Beta 1 and Beta 2 receptors

o    1/10 -$16,570 – Amiee Potter, Ph.D. – Molecular research in calvarial suture morphogenesis

o    1/10 - $46,396 – Laurence DiNardo, M.D. & Catherine Dumur, Ph.D. –Gene expression profiling for predicting the therapeutic effectiveness of chemoradiotherapy treatment in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

Funding for UVA:

o    9/08 - $24,690 - Bradley Kesser, M.D. – Surgical repair of unilateral congenital aural atresia

o    1/10 - $22,671 – Spencer Payne, M.D. – Effects of itraconazole on the development and differentiation of T helper cells

o    1/10 - $47,834 – Paul Yates, M.D. – Use of human adipose-derived stem cells for treatment of diabetic retinopathy

Funding for EVMS:

o    5/08 - $49,500 - Sandeep Samudre, PhD. , MPH – Anti angiogenic effects of topically applied endocannabinoid analogs in a mouse mode of age related macular degeneration

o    5/09 - $10,000 - Michael Chu, M.D. –  Minimally invasive, Local Pharmacologic Ischemic Preconditioning with a Vasoconstrictor in a Rat Model: Non-surgical Vascular Delay.

o    5/09 - $44,280 - Joseph Han, M.D.  Immune Response in Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Other Funding:

o    12/07 - $50,000 - Nicola Ghazi, M.D. –Pilot study on ocular penetration of topical Ranibizumab into rabbit eyes § (Texas Tech University)

o    5/08 - $49,958 - Wael Jarjour, M.D. – Regulatory t cells role in the pathogenesis of human Sjorgren’s syndrome § (Ohio State University)

o    1/10 - $19,105 –Bradley T. Smith, M.D. – Bevacizumab with and without laser for the treatment of central retinal vein occlusion.

 

Sight Preservation Center at Stony Point

 

 

The Sight Preservation Center at Stony Point, a service of the Richmond Eye and Ear Healthcare Alliance, Inc., is central Virginia’s only private low vision rehabilitation center. Since 1998, we have been helping the vision impaired in Richmond resume their daily living activities, regain their independence, and improve their quality of life.   http://stonypointsc.com/facility/lvrc

 

Did you know that there are numerous low vision aids and scores of proven strategies for coping with low vision? These aids and strategies can likely help your visually impaired patients maximize their remaining vision and maintain their independence.

 

Vision impairments may take many forms and be of varying degrees. Visual acuity alone is not always a good predictor of the degree of problems a person may have. Someone with relatively good acuity (e.g., 20/40) can have difficulty with daily functioning, while someone with worse acuity (e.g., 20/200) may function reasonably well if their visual demands are not great.

 

Most of the patients we see at The Sight Preservation Center at Stony Point have age-related macular degeneration, diabetic eye disease, or glaucoma. However, we see many patients that have suffered from stroke, rod-cone dystrophy, aniridia, achromatopsia, optic atrophy, cornea disease and many other eye diseases.

 

Some patients with low vision can use their residual vision to complete daily tasks without relying on alternative methods. However, many will experience difficulty with regular activities such as cooking, shopping, managing finances, watching television, reading, and taking care of their personal needs. Many patients with low vision have concerns about finding and keeping a job, interacting with friends and family members, getting around, and participating in recreational, social and religious activities.

 

The mission of the Sight Preservation Center at Stony Point is to improve the quality of life for those who are visually impaired through awareness, resources and solutions. Our team will maximize the functional level of a patient’s vision through optical and non-optical means. Primarily, this is by use of magnification in the form of telescopic systems for distance vision and optical or electronic magnification for near tasks, such as reading or writing checks. Rehabilitation and adjustment to significant vision loss will also be discussed in the form of advice on lighting and contrast to maximize remaining vision.

 

A patient does not need to be legally blind, but should be referred when functional vision complaints are reported, such as difficulty reading, writing, driving, seeing a computer or cooking. We have seen patients with 20/20 (but still having functional complaints) as well as totally blind individuals. There is no vision limit to what vision can be evaluated in our Center

 

Knowledge is the key to living with low vision. Your patients with low vision can enhance their quality of life by learning which optical and non-optical aids can help them, and by integrating strategies for dealing with the vision impairment into daily life. Motivation and Attitude are perhaps the most important factors in determining one’s success in using low vision aids. If people are willing to give some energy and effort to learning how to make the best use of their remaining sight, they can do nearly everything they did before, perhaps just in a different way. Practice is an important next step. Just as an amputee must learn to walk with his new prosthesis, a person with low vision must practice using adaptive aids until they become second nature.

 

You may contact us directly at (804) 545-9435 or lowvision@stonypointsc.com to refer or ask any questions.