Run for Vision Raises $17K for EBAA

The 27th Annual Run for Vision 5K benefit run/walk, held Sunday at Grant Park in downtown Chicago raised almost $17,000 for the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA). The charity run, which had more than 350 participants, was co-sponsored by Bausch + Lomb, which has been a part of the event for nearly three decades. Since the race's inception, it has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars in support of the EBAA.  

Michelle Keagle, and her two sisters, Christy Gault and Kathy Lewis, traveled to Chicago from Nebraska, Colorado and Virginia with their own special reason to participate. In 2007 their brother, Ryan Otte, died in an Iowa hospital at the age of 21, following a tragic farm-related accident in northeastern Nebraska. One of Otte’s corneas was successfully transplanted to Rebecca Koltveit, a then 16-year old student from Pontiac, IL, whose sight was threatened by a serious corneal infection in her right eye. The day before the run, Koltveit, now a senior at Eureka College, finally got to meet Otte’s sisters at a gathering facilitated by the Iowa Lions Eye Bank. Together, they participated in the Run for Vision, oblivious to the morning chill. Read more.