• From Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, supporters can participate in fundraising activities.
• The campaign includes new contests, a live leaderboard and updated fundraising tools.

Optometry Giving Sight’s participation in the 2026 World Sight Day Challenge, a fundraising campaign mobilizing the optometric industry and communities to support access to vision care, is in full swing.

From Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, supporters worldwide can participate in fundraising challenges to expand Optometry Giving Sight (OGS)-funded programs that provide eye exams, glasses and optometry training in communities lacking vision care, according to a press release.

The challenge is highlighted by World Sight Day, observed annually on the second Thursday of October — this year, Oct. 8.

“Every year, we ask what we most want our community to feel when they show up for the World Sight Day Challenge. This year, the answer was clear: We wanted them to understand that what they’re doing goes far beyond simply correcting someone’s refractive error,” Donna J. Mikulecky, CPA, executive director of OGS, told Healio.

According to the release, the World Sight Day Challenge, now in its 20th year, will also offer new initiatives to increase participation, including a live practice leaderboard, more contests with prizes and an updated digital toolkit to help practices and schools run their fundraising campaigns.

Dedicated to eliminating preventable blindness and vision impairment, OGS has provided access to essential eye care resources and programs for more than 15 million people in more than 70 countries. The World Sight Day Challenge helps to support that work.

“[The challenge is] about changing what [people] can do, who they can become and what their future looks like. It’s not just sight. It’s an entire future,” Mikulecky said.

Donna J. Mikulecky, CPA, can be contacted through Emma Alvarez Gibson at emma.alvarezgibson@givingsight.org.