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Take your glasses off.

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Take your glasses off and put them on the table.

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Now go get in your car and take your kids to school.

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Can you read your phone?

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Could you see your computer screen?

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Would you feel comfortable getting on the roof of someone's house

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and putting up solar panels if they're participating in the Illinois

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Green Jobs Initiative?

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Would you feel comfortable knowing that the chef in the kitchen.

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Was functioning like you currently are without your glasses on.

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Um,

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I don't claim that having a pair of glasses is going to change someone's world.

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But it's gonna make it

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easier.

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My name is Amelia Moran.

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I am the president and co-founder of Vision for Chicago.

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So Vision for Chicago is a nonprofit,

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and we provide vision screenings with a refraction

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and eyeglasses to

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Participants in

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re-entry and job training programs in the city of Chicago.

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The benefit to having access to vision

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care when someone is coming out of incarceration

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is huge.

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While someone is incarcerated,

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typically they're only entitled to an eye exam maybe once every 2 years.

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If their prescription changes or something happens,

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it's a really long process to try to replace them.

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Um,

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and so a lot of times

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folks coming out of incarceration

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either don't have a current pair of glasses because

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they have been broken or they're just outdated,

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or they're just really old.

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For the people outside of the system,

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when they ask me why,

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my response usually is,

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why not?

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Why not?

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They're our neighbors,

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right?

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Like

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Susan,

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my one part-time employee,

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um,

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is also formally incarcerated.

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Half the time I forget that

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because she's just Susan.

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These people who are coming out of incarceration,

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they're human beings,

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and they come out of incarceration

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for whatever reason into a society that tells them,

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this is who you are,

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this is all you are.

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This is all you're going to be.

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You know I could go sell glasses all day long.

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I'd much rather give them away

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and watch that change in people's faces.

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And then looking at them and saying,

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Who do you want to be?