EyeCare4Kids™ names Maggie Cline as new CEO

Founder Joseph Carbone to expand the organization’s African footprint

2025-06-04

(Press-News.org) Midvale, UT (June 4, 2025) – EyeCare4Kids™, a non-profit organization that provides professional eye care services to low-income, visually impaired children and underserved families across the southwest United States and Africa, today announced the promotion of Maggie Cline, MPH, to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Ms. Cline joined EyeCare4Kids in 2022 and served as Executive Director Utah, where she oversaw the delivery of more than 50,000 vision services annually at school clinics, community centers, and other underserved areas across the state. Ms. Cline succeeds board-certified optician Joseph Carbone, who founded the organization in 2001 and will transition to a role focused on international development. Mr. Carbone is celebrating his 50th year in clinical practice in 2025.

One in four children in the United States have vision problems and the problem is amplified further in high-poverty areas where vision problems are more than double than the national average.(1-3) With an ongoing commitment to improving health equity, EyeCare4Kids eliminates many of the logistical and affordability barriers that prevent vision screenings in children. In addition to school and five community-based clinics, the organization deploys four mobile vision clinics across Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho to reach the most remote communities and manufactures its own glasses, with hundreds of stylish frames from which children can choose, to ensure delivery of high-quality care.

In her role as Executive Director Utah, Ms. Cline increased patient volume at the EyeCare4Kids- owned Midvale clinic and supported the launch of a new permanent clinic in Ogden. She played an integral role in expanding the mobile outreach team to serve more remote and underserved areas across Utah, cultivating partnerships with school districts across the state, homeless shelters, refugee centers, and other organizations serving vulnerable populations. Ms. Cline’s drive to expand the footprint and impact of EyeCare4Kids is informed by her own experience being raised by a single mom who spoke little English but worked three jobs to obtain her education and Master’s degree, setting an example for her daughter.

“The mission of EyeCare4Kids is both professional and personal for me because I used to be one of those kids whose family faced challenges and anxiety navigating the complicated U.S. health and education systems. That’s why I understand how important it is when one person or one organization offers a hand-up, potentially offering a life-changing impact with one act of kindness,” said Ms. Cline. “I look forward to expanding the reach of EyeCare4Kids and thank Joseph Carbone for founding, growing, and leading the organization for so many years.”

Joseph Carbone to Expand EyeCare4Kids Reach in Africa

Since its founding, EyeCare4Kids included programming in Africa as part of its mission, with former CEO Joseph Carbone traveling to different African nations annually to donate his professional time and resources to provide optometric services and glasses to in-need communities. With a goal to provide one million vision services to African children by 2030, EyeCare4Kids Africa (a registered NGO) has one fully operational clinic in Kenya with plans to open a second clinic in South Africa in 2025. Studies show that vision services and healthcare professionals remain far below what the World Health Organization recommends as the minimum requirements for eye health workers across the region.4

In his new role, Mr. Carbone will dedicate more time to forging partnerships in Africa with different countries’ government departments, other NGOs specializing in vision care, optometrists, clinics, lens manufacturers, universities, and schools to develop a collaborative network that creates a scalable, sustainable, and far-reaching solution to support children’s vision health across Africa. Akin to their work in the United States, EyeCare4Kids Africa will build the infrastructure to manufacture, cut, and fit lenses into frames efficiently.

“Over the past twenty years, I’ve seen how our work in Africa helps children to see better, do better in school, and set up opportunities to improve their quality of life. I’m very much looking forward to my next chapter when I can focus on building long-lasting relationships that extend the impact of EyeCare4Kids,” said Joseph Carbone, president and founder. “I also congratulate Maggie Cline on her well-deserved promotion. Her hard work, dedication, and resourcefulness combined with her compassion will serve EyeCare4Kids well in the future.”

Mr. Carbone’s 50-year career as a practicing optician will be celebrated at an open house at EyeCare4Kids headquarters from 11 am - 2 pm MT on June 16, 2025.

About EyeCare4Kids™

Focused on rural and underserved areas, including indigenous, immigrant, and refugee communities mostly in the Southwest United States and Africa, EyeCare4Kids is a 501(c)3 children’s charity that provides professional exams and glasses for children at low or no cost to their families. Since its founding, the organization has provided over 500,000 vision care services to children and families who cannot afford or face barriers to seeking out regular eye exams and corrective glasses, when needed. Glasses have an immediate and positive impact on children with correctable vision problems and help school performance as well as increase their confidence. EyeCare4Kids manufactures and fits glasses for its patients and educates children on how to care for their glasses, thereby fostering a positive sense of ownership and responsibility. To learn more, visit https://eyecare4kids.org/

Media Contact:

Jessica Daitch

JLD Communications

917-816-6712

jessica@jldcommunications.com

References

Prevent Blindness. Children’s Vision and eye health: A Snapshot of Current National Issues. Last accessed on 5-16-25 at https://ohio.preventblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Childrens_Vision_Chartbook.pdf Ganz, M., Xuan, Z., Hunter DG, “Patterns of eye care use and expenditures among children with diagnosed eye conditions,” JAAPOS, Vol. 11, Issue 5, p480-487 October 2007 https://www.jaapos.org/article/S1091-8531(07)00195-4/abstract Neitzel AJ, Wolf B, Guo X, et al. Effect of a Randomized Interventional School-Based Vision Program on Academic Performance of Students in Grades 3 to 7: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2021;139(10):1104–1114. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2021.3544 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/2783867 Graham R. Facing the crisis in human resources for eye health in sub-Saharan Africa. Community Eye Health. 2017;30(100):85-87. PMID: 29483753; PMCID: PMC5820633. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5820633/

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Moderate exercise slows brain aging: U-shaped association revealed by accelerometry

2025-06-04

A new study leveraging accelerometer and brain MRI data reveals that moderate levels of physical activity may help slow brain aging. Led by Associate Professor Chenjie Xu from the School of Public Health at Hangzhou Normal University, in collaboration with institutions including Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Tianjin Medical University, the study is published in Health Data Science. Analyzing 16,972 participants from the UK Biobank, researchers applied a LightGBM machine learning algorithm to over 1,400 image-derived phenotypes to predict each individual’s "brain age." The findings indicate a U-shaped association between physical activity (PA) ...

Bat viruses similar to MERS have potential to jump to humans

2025-06-04

PULLMAN, Wash.--A group of bat viruses closely related to the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) could be one small mutation away from being capable of spilling over into human populations and potentially causing the next pandemic. A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications examined an understudied group of coronaviruses known as merbecoviruses — the same viral subgenus that includes MERS-CoV — to better understand how they infect host cells. The research ...

New 3D-printing method makes two materials from one resin

2025-06-04

One-pot recipes make preparing meals quick and easy. And one-pot 3D-printing could do the same for additive manufacturing. Now, researchers publishing in ACS Central Science have demonstrated a new resin that simultaneously creates solid objects and dissolvable structural supports, depending on what type of light the resin is exposed to. The approach could increase the applications for 3D-printed objects, including tissue engineering scaffolds, joints and hinges. “Vat photopolymerization is known for its fast and high-resolution printing, but one of the most nerve-wracking parts after printing is manually removing supports for intricate interlocking and overhang ...

A better understanding of how gene editing tools work

2025-06-04

You may have seen it in the news recently: a baby in Pennsylvania with a rare genetic disorder was healed with a personalized treatment that repaired his specific genetic mutation. The treatment was created using a form of gene editing called base editing —a method created by Alexis Komor when she was a postdoctoral scholar in molecular biologist David Liu’s group at Harvard University. Since that work was published in 2016, Komor, who is now an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California San Diego, has continued to study base-editing tools to better understand and further develop their capabilities. ...

Tool for protecting soldiers’ brain health earns $3.2 million grant

2025-06-04

A team led by University of Virginia School of Medicine researcher James Stone, MD, PhD, has received $3.2 million from the federal Department of Defense to enhance a critical tool for protecting the brain health of military personnel. The project aims to upgrade the Generalized Blast Exposure Value (GBEV) tool that assigns a numerical score to a service member’s history of blast exposures that can be used to assess the potential for adverse health outcomes. “This will represent a major step forward in how the military monitors, protects and cares for its service members,” said Stone, a UVA Health ...

Virginia Tech researcher earns American Heart Association fellowship to explore how obesity increases the risk for heart disease

2025-06-04

At home in Australia, Mark Renton started playing football as soon as he could. He figured it would eventually lead to a career prescribing strength training and exercise regimens to athletes. But as an undergraduate, the sports science curriculum included an exercise metabolism course that explored how cells turn energy into movement. This biological focus captured Renton’s imagination, and he became increasingly interested in the mechanisms that underly muscle function, including developing force through contractions that mediate precise movements. Ultimately, Renton wound up earning a doctorate ...

Study identifies personality traits associated with bedtime procrastination

2025-06-04

DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2025 annual meeting found that bedtime procrastination in young adults is associated with specific personality traits, including depressive tendencies. Results show that bedtime procrastination was associated with higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness and extraversion. These results remained significant after statistically adjusting for chronotype. “Our study demonstrated that individuals who habitually procrastinate their bedtime were actually less likely to report seeking out exciting, engaging, or enjoyable activities,” said lead author Steven Carlson, ...

How late college students go to sleep is influenced by the need to belong

2025-06-04

DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2025 annual meeting found that bedtime procrastination among college students is socially influenced by the need to belong. Results show that sleep duration was more than an hour shorter on school nights when college students delayed their bedtime for in-person social leisure activities. On these nights, their bedtime was strongly correlated with the timing of their last objectively measured social interaction with friends. Students within the bedtime procrastination social network scored higher on the need to belong compared with students outside the network. The need to belong also predicted tie ...

Discovery of giant planet orbiting tiny star challenges theories on planet formation

2025-06-04

The Unexpected Planet Star TOI-6894 is just like many in our galaxy, a small red dwarf, and only ~20% of the mass of our Sun. Like many small stars, it is not expected to provide suitable conditions for the formation and hosting of a large planet. However, as published today in Nature Astronomy, an international team of astronomers have found the unmistakable signature of a giant planet, called TOI-6894b, orbiting this tiny star. This system has been discovered as part of a large-scale investigation of TESS (Transiting Exoplanet ...

Blood sugar response to various carbohydrates can point to metabolic health subtypes, study finds

2025-06-04

A study led by researchers at Stanford Medicine shows that differences in blood sugar responses to certain carbohydrates depend on details of an individual’s metabolic health status. The differences in blood sugar response patterns among individuals were associated with specific metabolic conditions such as insulin resistance or beta cell dysfunction, both of which can lead to diabetes. The study findings suggest that this variability in blood sugar response could lead to personalized prevention and treatment strategies for prediabetes and diabetes. “Right now, the American Diabetes Association ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Tiny but mighty: sophisticated next-gen transistors hold great promise

World's first practical surface-emitting laser for optical fiber communications developed: advancing miniaturization, energy efficiency, and cost reduction of light sources