Vision of community support
Lions assisting with fundraising for electronic glasses to restore seventh-grader’s eyesight
HILLTOWN >> Having a genetic degenerative eye disease that is taking away his central vision hasn’t stopped Faith Christian Academy seventh-grader A. J. (Andrew) Lowe from becoming a wrestler.
“It’s a sport with touch more than sight,” he said recently during a session with the after-school wrestling club he takes part in at Renzo Gracie PA MMA in Hilltown.
“It’s a contact sport, so it plays to his strengths,” A. J.’s mother, Julie Lowe, said.
Coach Ben Clymer and A. J.’s fellow-wrestlers treat him the same as the other members of the club, Julie Lowe said.
“I bark at him just like I would any other guy and compliment him just like I would any other
guy,” Clymer said.
Lowe has a lot of drive and focus, Clymer said, along with some advantages as a wrestler that may have come about through dealing with the vision loss — a heightened sense of transitioning and keeping his balance.
Clymer said his coaching focuses not on the visual impairment, but that, “Life is still good. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for and God-given strengths, so we’ll play to those and work hard.”
A. J. has Stargardt’s disease, Julie Lowe said.
“It is genetic and progressive,” she said. “It will degenerate until eventually he loses his central vision.”
Since A. J. is one of five adopted children in the family, his genetic history is not known and its impossible to say how fast the disease will progress, she said.
“He adapts amazingly well. If somebody’s watching him, they wouldn’t know he’s legally blind,” she said, but said he cannot see a lot of things around him and that his peripheral vision is stronger than his central vision.
He is learning to use a
“I just want to be able to experience the things we all take for granted. To watch a movie with my family and friends, read a book, see the faces of all you amazing people reading this and thinking about donating, or just see my own smile again.” — A. J. Lowe
cane to help get around, she said.
A. J., who has a pet dog that is blind and was trained as a therapy dog, jokes that it’s the blind leading the blind when he walks with the dog, Julie Lowe said.
Asked who is leading on those walks, A. J. joked that, “probably my dog’s leading me, actually.”
“His lifeline is technology. He’s able to go to a regular school because he can do everything on his iPad and blow it up,” Julie Lowe said.
When he was tested for eSight electronic glasses, he was again able to see normally, which he wasn’t able to do for about the past three years, A. J. said.
“The glasses re-format what the eyes should be seeing,” said Scott Roltsch, president of the Perkasie Lions.
“A message gets sent to his brain and he sees like he normally would,” Roltsch said. “They’re phenomenal glasses, but they are expensive.”
It will take $15,000 plus a trip to Ohio for fitting to get the glasses, he said.
The Perkasie Lions will make a $2,000 contribution as a matching donation, he said.
Donations may be made at www.giving.esighteyewear.com by scrolling through the children’s photos until you get to A.J. Lowe or by using the explore button and searching for “Lowe.”
With $3,205 having been donated thus far, plus the Lions $2,000 contribution, $9,795 still has to be raised, Roltsch said.
“All I want is to see the world as it sees me,” A. J. Lowe wrote on giving. esighteyewear.com.
“To be honest with you, I don’t even want eSight so I can go on some extravagant adventures or witness a special event. But, that would be a nice little added bonus,” he wrote. “Truthfully, I need eSight so I can again begin living life the way it was meant to be lived. I just want to be able to experience the things we all take for granted. To watch a movie with my family and friends, read a book, see the faces of all you amazing people reading this and thinking about donating, or just see my own smile again.”
The Lions Club has a particular interest in vision-related matters, but that is not its only function, Roltsch said.
“We like to help anybody in our community if we’re able,” he said. “That’s what we’re all about.”