A dream we share, for all children in Pennsylvania

An hour before the doors were even open, Parrin, 4, lined up with her family for the 10th annual Give Kids Sight Day, PCCY’s day of free vision care.

Little did she know she would soon be our belle of the (eye)ball as the 10,000th child served. Little did we know she’d spin perfect pirouettes in delight.

This year, our over 400 volunteers registered nearly 1,200 children in just four hours of operation, besting last year’s total. More than half will receive two pairs of free glasses. 

[Don’t miss the Philadelphia Tribune’s video feature on Sight Day! CLICK HERE!]

10,000 kids (actually, upwards of 11,000 including this year’s tally). It’s a huge milestone, worthy of celebration, made possible by our amazing partners, funders, and countless volunteers. It’s also a sobering reminder of the crushing urgency for the work that lay ahead in PCCY’s fight to make sure all children in Pennsylvania have access to basic health care.

While Pennsylvania boasts that it “covers all kids” under its pioneering CHIP policy (one of PCCY’s defining and most consequential achievements), the legislation callously cuts out a cohort of an estimated 24,000 vulnerable children, who, through no fault of their own, are undocumented.

For most parents it’s hard to imagine raising a child without access to basic health care. That’s partly why we organize Sight Day and it’s sister event, Give Kids A Smile week in the spring, to help raise awareness so that our “梦想护理” campaign to actually cover all PA kids will become a consensus amongst voters, like the need to fully fund public schools (PA学校的工作) and significantly increase access to quality pre-K (PA的Pre-K).

The other reason, of course, is because the need for basic services is so great.    

On Sight Day, which is designed to reach uninsured or underinsured kids, no child is turned away, whether or not they’re already insured or if they have legal status.

For PCCY, childhood is the only status that matters. But we’re not alone.

This week, PCCY held its first Oktoberfest event at the Philadelphia Brewing Company, a special fundraiser to boost our child insurance work, headlined by the Second Lady of PA, Gisele Fetterman, who herself arrived in the U.S. as an undocumented child.

Over 200 supporters of the Dream Care campaign enjoyed some delicious offerings from some of Philadelphia’s top restaurants and distilleries. They were also treated to an intimate performance by the incomparable Stevie and the Bluescasters, and the splendid company of like-minded individuals, like artist Ada Luisa Trillo who graciously shared her collection of photographs of a caravan of migrants seeking refuge across the U.S./Mexican border.   

Second Lady Fetterman, who noted that her own remarkable story could be the story of any migrant child, spoke about the folly of underestimating the potential of all children, especially those who are undocumented, because “the next one could be governor.”   

All kids have a right to health care, including excellent vision care, like Parrin received at Wills Eye Hospital on Sight Day. So that’s one child ready to take on the world.

Just 24,000 more to go.