In 2020, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) received a $75,000 Seed grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. With this funding, the CNIB was able to support participants in their goals to get active through a pilot project called EmpowerPlay. 

“Congratulations to the CNIB on receiving this OTF grant,” said Don Valley West MPP Kathleen Wynne. “This funding has changed people’s lives, allowing them to take part in their communities more completely.”

This pilot project aimed to test a goal-focused, process-driven approach to increasing physical activity among the sight loss community. Select participants in Ontario who wanted to make positive changes to their physical activity and lifestyle were invited to take part in the program. During the program, the group was able to participate in recreational events, and received coaching and other forms of personalized support to help them reach their physical activity goals.

“I joined EmpowerPlay to not only play basketball again but to change my life. I gained the tools and resources to reclaim a past love. In eight months…I have gone from being overweight and inactive to fit and healthy due in large to my participation in this program,” says Ian Masterman, EmpowerPlay participant.

Click HERE for the full press release.

One year after CooperVision established the first plastic neutral contact lens though a trailblazing partnership with Plastic Bank®, the program has made a significant environmental and social impact worldwide:

• The equivalent of nearly 28 million plastic bottles have been prevented from polluting the oceans.
• 171 coastal communities have directly benefited from exchanging ocean-bound plastic for necessities such as clean water, groceries, cooking oil, school tuition, and even health insurance.

CooperVision’s partnership with Plastic Bank®, a social enterprise that builds ethical recycling ecosystems in coastal communities and reprocesses the materials for reintroduction into the global supply chain, is the largest plastic neutrality initiative in the contact lens industry. Currently, 18 CooperVision subsidiaries in Europe and North America are participating with 9 more in Asia, South America, and Europe slated to join this year. With this expanded scale, the program is expected to prevent the equivalent of nearly 90 million plastic bottles from reaching oceans in 2022 – more than 3 times the amount collected in 2021.

CooperVision’s plastic neutrality initiative, while unprecedented, is one of many milestones in the organization’s journey to ever-greater sustainability.

“We are constantly striving to identify novel solutions that not only address key sustainability challenges but also create new opportunities,” said Dan McBride, Executive Vice President (EVP), Chief Operating Officer of CooperCompanies. “By reexamining our relationship with plastic, we can help protect the world’s oceans and transform waste into a resource.”

“There is no single approach that achieves sustainability, so we need to manage plastic use on many fronts,” McBride continued. “There is no finish line either, so we invite contact lens wearers and the rest of the eye care industry to join us.”

Click HERE for the press release.