The Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight & Hearing is an award-winning 501(c)(3) charitable organization focusing on providing sight and hearing care. Founded in 1969 as the Northwest Lions Eye Bank, the Foundation has grown beyond its original mission as a center of excellence for cornea donation to providing sight and hearing care to the residents of the Pacific Northwest and others in need throughout United States and the world.

The Foundation operates:

SightLife^TM, the largest eyebank in the United States, provided 2,801 corneas for transplant in 2007, including 167 custom corneal tissues. Because of the generosity and selflessness of Northwest citizens, SightLife recovers more tissue than is required to meet regional need. Tissue not needed locally is places with surgeons in other states and other countries, where need far outstrips supply.

Audient^TM, an innovative national program bringing high-quality hearing care to those with limited ability to pay.  The Foundation has partnered with several manufacturers and providers to make state of the art digital hearing aids available to qualifying individuals at about one-half the regular cost.

Patient Care grants help sight-impaired, deaf, or hard-of-hearing individuals obtain special equipment or medical treatment they could not otherwise afford.  In communities throughout Washington and Northern Idaho, the Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight & Hearing comes to the rescue by matching funds raised by local Lions Clubs for hearing- and sight-related costs.Last year, more than $100,000 of charitable support from the Lions Patient Care Program went to cover everything from seeing-eye dogs to braille readers to a prosthetic eye. In every case, this charitable support furthered the health and independence of an individual with hearing or sight loss.

The Lions Hearing Aid Bank takes donated used hearing aids, refurbishes them, and makes them available to those on a restricted income.

The Lions Health Screening Unit is a 62-feet-long, medically-equipped trailer that travels throughout Washington and Northern Idaho to give free health screenings at schools, county fairs, and other public events. These screenings for glaucoma, diabetes, high blood pressure, and sight and hearing loss are the key to interventions in potentially life-threatening health problems.  In 2007 over 30,000 persons were screened by the unit, most of them children.

The Foundation also provides Project Support Grants to individual Lions clubs in the region.  These matching grants allow local Lions clubs to continue to serve the sight and hearing needs of those in their communities.