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An Optician’s Mission
By Denis Langlois
Q. Bryan, please tell us about how this latest mission trip came about.
A team of Ontario opticians, including
Sudbury’s Bryan Todd, recently saw
more than 1,000 patients and dispensed
nearly 900 glasses during a 10-day
mission trip to Africa.
The journey to Kenya’s capital city of
Nairobi was the third eyeglass mission
for Todd, who has done similar work
in Belize in Central America as well as
in the southeastern African country
of Malawi.
Todd has owned Todd VisionCentre in
Sudbury since 1981. He started in the
optical industry as a student in 1973 and
began taking his optician’s licence by
correspondence from Ryerson University.
He became a licenced optician, after fin-
ishing his studies at Ryerson, in 1975. He
was 21 at the time and then considered
to be the youngest optician licenced
in Ontario.
Todd has been on the College of
Opticians of Ontario for more than 25
years and currently holds the position
of vice-president.
Recently, we got a chance to chat with
Bryan Todd about his latest eyeglass
mission to Africa and the impact it’s
had on him.
44 OPTICAL PRISM | March 2019
A. I was approached by a fellow optician, Amber Fournier in Sudbury, to see if
I had any interest in going to Kenya, specifically Nairobi, and work in the less
fortunate areas outside of Nairobi. I gave it some thought and decided to go
again. I approached another optician friend of mine, Paul Burnham of Burnham
Optical in Kingston. He agreed to go with me as Paul and I had both been in
Belize together. Paul has been on more missions than most opticians, going to
Guyana a number of times.
The trip was organized by a nurse from Sudbury, who has helped create an or-
ganization call I SEE U out of Sudbury. This non-profit group supports 22 orphan
children in a home they sponsor in Nairobi where we stayed. The kids were
wonderful and great to spend time with.
Q. What did you bring on this mission?
A. We brought handheld autorefractors generously purchased thanks to Paul
Fabish of Plastic Plus and approximately 1,500 pairs of eyeglasses. Some of the
frames were generously donated by Perfect Optical and lenses donated by Hoya
and Optik K&R, so Paul and I were able to make up brand new eyeglasses. The
majority were donated glasses from local optical dispensaries in Sudbury.
Other glasses were donated from friends and colleagues.
Q. What is it like for you to do these mission trips?
A. The reaction one gets from these people when they first put a pair of eyeglass-
es on and have the ability to see clearly is quite overwhelming. It certainly makes
you forget about any reservations you might have about going and makes it all
worthwhile.
Perhaps it is self-serving in a way, but helping people out that are so less for-
tunate than we are does make you feel great and definitely makes you want to
continue going on more missions. We do take so much for granted until you are
exposed to those less fortunate than you.
Q. Do you think you will do more of this work in the future?
A. I am quite sure I will do more missions in the future. Once you start it is
difficult to stop. It truly is a good thing to do. I have been fortunate enough to
have been interviewed by radio and television about this trip and I use those
opportunities to encourage others to help in any way. The reaction from the
public and my own patients has been amazing.