Judith DePaoli: Patient Care Grant – Sight

A working woman all her life, Judith DePaoli was going blind from macular degeneration and cataracts. Without insurance, she couldn't afford the surgery she needed to keep her job at a Seattle-area restaurant.

Doctors' estimates for the surgery were all upwards of $13,000, and fundraising efforts of family and friends were well short of that goal. The social agencies the family contacted could offer no help until Judith actually lost her job. Judith's daughter, Becky, was to the point of despair in her efforts to find help when she contacted the Bothell Lions Club.

"I think we can help," said Club President Whitey Gann. The small Club did just that by partnering with the Northwest Lions Foundation to pay for most of the surgery through a Patient Care grant. The money that family and friends had raised covered the rest.

Weeks later an estatic Becky e-mailed this news: "Mom can now see the leaves on the plants and the cracks in the sidewalk. She finds them equally beautiful."