lawrence ginsberg ’80

The Nicaraguan woman had one request: “I want to see the horizon.” Too poor to afford glasses, she had reached the age of 40 without seeing the mountains, a cloudless sky, a sunset.

Lawrence Ginsberg gave them to her through his volunteer work as an optometrist, testing and providing free glasses to needy people in Central America and coal-mining towns in Tennessee and Virginia.

“I love doing this,’’ he says. “My profession has been good to my family and me. It’s a way to give back.’’

Raised in East Providence, Ginsberg studied zoology at URI, then spent four years at the New England College of Optometry, opening his practice in his hometown in 1987.

Fifteen years ago, a colleague suggested he sign up with Northeast Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity. With his two daughters older and his practice established, Ginsberg went for it.

His first trip was to Jinotepe, a small town in Nicaragua. In a clinic set up at a local school, he saw 50 patients a day. Some had such poor eyesight they couldn’t read; others suffered from diabetes-related eye conditions. After an exam, he fit them for glasses—all donated by the nonprofit—and provided eye medications. “For them, it was glasses or food on the table,’’ he recalls.

Since then, he’s made 15 trips to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama; and through Remote Area Medical, to Appalachia. There, people eager to finally see the world slept in their cars in the clinic’s parking lot the night before. “They were huddled in fleece blankets next to fire pits,’’ says Ginsberg. “It was disturbing—hard to believe this takes place in America”.

By ELIZABETH RAU