Over £3,500 raised by Optician Awards guests for Blind Veterans UK

Optician editor Chris Bennett visited the Brighton rehabilitation centre of Blind Veterans UK last week to mark the donation of £3,544.08 from guests at this year's Optician Awards. The money was raised at the Awards presentation night through donations and party goers playing the charity casino. Bennett's visit coincided with a trains, planes and automobiles week at the centre. This comprised a number of organised visits to local places of historical transport interest.

In the last year BVUK made 1,800 grants totalling £1.2m, 6,000 welfare officer assessments and provided 249 people with homes. The charity also offered counselling to 270 people and ran 54 introductory weeks at its Brighton, Sheffield and Llandudno centres. BVUK is hoping to work with optical practices to reach the 68,000 people who could benefit from the charity's work. Blind veterans is the only charity dedicated to help visually impaired ex-service people no matter when they served, for how long or how their visual impairment came about.