Tyreke Evans returns to Chester to reach out
Tyreke Evans will host a basketball camp and encourage residents to get free eye exams
CHESTER >> NBA player Tyreke Evans is back home in Chester this weekend to host a free basketball camp at Chester High School.
“We’re going to show them the skill sets and show them what it takes to be an NBA player,” Evans said Friday outside the George E. Carter Center. “I’ll bring my gear, do jumping drills and have some fun.”
In addition, the current New Orleans Pelican guard is helping bring awareness to eye care through VSP Global, the nonprofit initiative dedicated to health and wellness beginning with sight, which Evans has been associated since his days in Sacramento.
VSP offers free eye exams and glasses to adults and children in need via its mobile clinic which travel around the United States. This is the third year the nonprofit has visited Chester.
“Working with VSP for seven years, we started in Sacramento and we’ve been coming back to Chester for the last couple years,” Evans said. “Every year it’s gotten better, the camp’s been great and I’m excited.”
Councilman William Jacobs and Councilwoman Elizabeth Williams were on hand to detail the importance of both Evans’ camp and the need for a permanent spot for VSP to offer eye exams to the residents of Chester all year round.
“People city-wide need eyewear,” Jacobs said. “People with the appointments walk away with eyeglasses. Other people walk away with a prescription that later they can take to an optometrist and get a pair of glasses.”
The VSP Mobile Eyes clinic is a fully-stocked, state-of-the-art, 45-foot-long laboratory that provides eye exams children and adults. Between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, outside Chester High School, people are invited to come and receive a gift certificate for free eye exam.
Cecil Swamidoss, the director of government affairs and senior counsel at VSP, traveled up from Washington, D.C., to volunteer on Friday and help offer insight to the importance of eye exams.
“We started VSP out of a need during Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” Swamidoss said. “We wanted a way to give back to the community, so we create these mobile clinics to go down there and equip the doctors who had lost everything.”
He said that especially in areas where socioeconomic factors make take a toll on an individual through unhealthy diets — diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension — eye exams can detect those types of conditions almost seven years in advance of a regular physical.
“The capillaries and arteries in the back of the eye when they are dilated you can detect diseases like that,” he said.
Since 2005, VSP has examined over 1 million people, with more than 204,540 people already examined this year. In the three years since VSP has visited Chester, it’s examined between 600 and 800 people each year.
This weekend, while the mobile clinic is parked outside, Tyreke and the free basketball camp will be taking place inside from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Evans said he hopes he can be a positive influence to the young people of Chester.
“I know how it is in Chester. I came from here. The neighborhood can be very violent, but at the end of the day you have your own decisions to make, and you have to try to make the right ones and be positive in life,” Evans said.
Evans said he’s willing to help install new basketball courts or boys and girls clubs in the city to help make it a better place.
“If I can help with anything like putting in more basketball courts, boys and girls clubs, anything, just to give them something to do to keep them out of trouble, I’m always willing to help,” Evans said. “I came from here, I know how it is, and I know how easy it is to get sidetracked.”