The Katy Lions have a stock of VSP Eyes of Hope Certificates that we are making available to local in-need individuals. If you meet the eligibility requirements, you qualify for a free eye exam and $150 coverage for glasses. If you'd like to learn more about this program, including becoming one of the income verification agencies/organizations, please reach out to EyeAssist@katylions.org. Right now we are partnering with Hope Impacts to reach the Katy-area homeless population and Katy ISD for low-income students. We're also adding several additional organizations in the coming weeks to help us as referral partners. This will allow us to serve a greater segment of our community.

• How does it work as a consumer: If you meet the eligibility criteria (including a family income less than 200% of the federal poverty line and not used the VSP program in the last 12 months), you qualify for a voucher that can be used at any of the hundreds of locations nationwide.

• How does it work as a referral partner: If you're working with the Katy Lions, we have a referral form you can fill out. You'd be required to confirm that the requesting individual meets the criteria. We recommend checking last year's tax return or the most recent pay stub. We're not out to jam anyone up, so if you have an existing procedure you use, that should be sufficient. Fill out our form and get it back to us. We'll then issue the certificate to you by mail, and then you work with the patient to make/get them to their appointment. In a perfect world: we won't need to follow up.

• How does it work if you're issuing vouchers directly: Per LCIF: LCIF provides the voucher to the District or Club. We fill out name and DOB and issue the certificate to the consumer. We retain name, DOB, and corresponding certificate number for our records. Only name, DOB, and the corresponding certificate number is required to be retained by the district or club. This information is submitted to LCIF when requesting the next batch of certificates. No additional information is required. As the issuing party, we're responsible for conducting a good-faith effort in ensuring the consumer qualifies for the certificate. How we conduct that is our responsibility.