New EyesThe Early Years

New Eyes was founded in 1932 when Julia Lawrence Terry, at age 64, saw the need for new eyeglasses among the many American Red Cross clients she assisted in New York City during the Great Depression. From her home in Short Hills, New Jersey, Mrs. Terry gathered her friends and neighbors and asked them for their used eyeglasses. She and building of relationships with entities as diverse as smelters, media outlets for public service ads, and the U.S. Post Office. By the time of her death in 1947, requests for new eyeglasses were coming from all over the country and supported by a dedicated volunteer corps. did not ask for money, which at that time was in short supply, instead, “time, talent and used eyeglasses” were her watchwords.

Julia Lawrence Terry’s clarion call for those in need of clear vision and her entrepreneurial efforts to enlist support have led to nearly 90 years of partnering with social service agencies, health centers, schools, nursing homes, optical dispensers, opticians, eyeglass frame manufacturers, optical labs and countless numbers of donors and volunteers. These critical relationships have sustained New Eyes through seismic shifts in the eyeglass industry – from metal alloys and plastics replacing gold to the regulation of eyeglasses as “medical devices” requiring prescriptions. These shifts required continued new thinking, new concepts and new sources of funding.

Mrs. Terry became quite the “speculator” as she turned the gold from used spectacles into the currency required to fund programs for optical exams and to purchase new eyeglasses for “hard luck” persons young and old. Her tenacity resulted in the creation