Our mission: The mission of the Sight & Hearing Association is to enable lifetime learning by identifying preventable loss of vision and hearing in children.

How we came to be: The Sight & Hearing Association (SHA), a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, was founded in 1939 as the Minnesota Society for the Prevention of Blindness, when Dr. Frank E. Burch, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Minnesota, recognized the need to end blindness from preventable causes. In 1979, the organization added the preservation of hearing to its mission when it merged with the Pre-School Medical Survey of Vision and Hearing (PSMSVH). PSMSVH was founded in 1959 by Grace Stoltze, a St. Croix Valley, Minn., resident who believed all children were entitled to medically oriented vision and hearing screening to detect treatable and potentially handicapping eye and ear conditions.

Today's Sight & Hearing Association is the only organization in the country working toward the prevention of, rather than the adaptation to, vision and hearing loss.

Staff:

Kathy Webb Executive Director kwebb@sightandhearing.org 651-645-2546, ext. 11 Julee Sylvester Director of Public Relations/Marketing jlps@sightandhearing.org 651-645-2546, ext. 14

Karen Klevar Screening Director kklevar@sightandhearing.org 651-645-2546, ext. 13 Bernice Burgy Program Assistant burgy@sightandhearing.org 651-645-2546, ext. 12

Screeners:

Pat Archambault Patty Flynn Cheryl Fredrickson Kris Hawkins Karin Kane

Kathy Noel Barb Painter Cathy Stroncek Cindy Vana Bob Wojcicki

Board of Directors:

Officers Charles F. Barer, M.D., President Dale Olson, Vice President Mrunalini Parvataneni, M.D., Treasurer Barbara L. Horton, Secretary Bruce Nicholson, Ex-Officio Directors Karen M. Arnold John A. Coverstone, AuD Jafar Hasan, M.D. Steve Cuddy Kathy Ohmanm