Sights for Hope Welcomes Ariana Ingstad to its Prevention Services Team
Sights for Hope has welcomed Ariana Ingstad to its team as a Lehigh Valley Prevention Specialist.
Ingstad has been a volunteer vision screener for the Prevention Services team for more than a year. Ariana also has been a licensed and practicing optometrist earlier in her career. She received her Doctor of Optometry degree from Southern California College of Optometry in Fullerton, CA.
Since moving to the east coast, Ariana has been a Child Watch Associate for the Greater Valley YMCA in Nazareth, PA. She also has held a variety of volunteer positions with Girls Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania; Kenneth Butz Elementary School in Nazareth, PA; and Life Church Nazareth in Nazareth, PA.
Sights for Hope’s Prevention Services include free vision screenings for pre-kindergarten children; community education programs; and its Focused Futures program, which seeks to ensure that 2,500 children ages 0-6 receive glasses or equivalent solutions from 2022-2030. The number of screenings provided by Sights for Hope in 2022-2023 increased in both Lehigh and Monroe counties.
Sights for Hope’s vision screenings are conducted with an advanced hand-held Spot Vision Screener that is highly accurate in the determination of conditions such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatisms, strabismus, and amblyopia. Two of Sights for Hope’s most senior Prevention Specialists are certified as children’s vision screeners from the national Prevent Blindness program.
Sights for Hope removes barriers to independence and success for people who live with visual impairments and blindness. Sights for Hope’s services teach adaptive skills to accomplish daily life activities; provide supports that counter the effects of visual impairments and blindness; increase access to medical care, healthy food, and other essentials; and advance solutions that enhance sight capabilities. More than 40% of Sights for Hope’s clients live below or near the federal poverty line. Founded in 1928, Sights for Hope carries forward in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley and Monroe County a tradition of service inspired by Helen Keller and is a member of the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind.
Image: Ariana Ingstad holding a Spot Vision Screener device and performing a screening on a young child