Scholarship Opportunity

This month I have the distinct honor to write about the Brookside Optometric Group’s latest project. My husband and I moved to Stockton in 1982 to begin our professional life here as optometrists. We joined Dr. Hisaka and Dr. Prima as partners. At that time we were impressed with their professional values but also with their community values. They taught us that when a community is good to you, you need to be good to the community.

Over the years our practice grew and in 1998 we combined our practice with two other practices in Stockton (and have since added a third) to form Brookside Optometric Group. We looked for other doctors who shared our concern for patients but also for our town as a whole.

Individually the various doctors in our practice have been involved with groups and organizations that give back. Our doctors have been members of Rotary and have supported the Lion’s Club on vision missions across the world. Our doctors have provided care at the St Mary’s Medical Clinic for years as well as at vision screenings in the community. We have traveled on Honor Flight trips to show WWII veterans our appreciation, and traveled to Chile to deliver wheelchairs to people in need. We help sponsor fundraisers for the Red Rhino Orphanage in Kenya, and actively support the Pacific Athletic Foundation right here at UOP. We have been active in our church groups as well as having Board of Director positions for the Chamber of Commerce and the San Joaquin Optometric Society. We have even had one of our male(!) doctors Walk-A-Mile in high heels three times to support the Stockton Women’s Center.

Our staff has taken this culture to heart by getting involved in walk-a-thons for breast cancer awareness, helping to raise money for a local leukemia victim and supporting the Stockton Women’s Center by participating in National Denim Day each year.

As my partners and I see our children grow up in these challenging economic times, we see the value of a college education and the sad reality of the cost of this education. We decided that we should do something to help, so we are offering a deserving San Joaquin County student a $1,000 scholarship to help defray college expenses this fall.

To make this application both fun and meaningful, we are asking students to make a 90-second video describing what they have done in the last year to make a difference in their community. Once the video is uploaded to YouTube and a link is sent to our website, the student is entered in our contest. We are asking San Joaquin County residents to vote for their favorites, with the final winner being determined by voting and an essay submitted by the top vote-getters. We hope to not only help a deserving student, but also showcase the many things our local teens are involved in that help make this area so special.

We hope to get the word out regarding this opportunity for our local seniors. Please feel free to copy the enclosed links and send it to families and friends that you know that have young adults who could enter.

Please visit our Facebook page and click our scholarship link at: https://www.facebook.com/brooksideoptometric/

Good luck to all!