VOSH had a wonderful mixer with optometry students last June during Optometry’s AOA meeting, and the enthusiasm and excitement from the interaction has snowballed. We are a volunteer board, and there’s so much potential for development, only held back by the time commitment. At this mixer, we had several optometry students come up and ask how they could be more involved with the VOSH organization. From that initial encounter, we have had students helping us update our website, post pertinent information on our social media pages, organize our photos, send out email blasts, and help in so many other useful ways.

As president, I have prioritized our outreach to SVOSH students. The VOSH board has developed an informational power point presentation and committed to a board or committee member visiting each of the optometry schools to meet with the SVOSH chapters and school administration to further educate the students and schools about the opportunities VOSH provides. Looking forward, we plan to continue this involvement with new optometry students yearly. Hopefully this outreach and involvement while students are in school will help us retain them as they graduate and go off in their optometry career.

Ellen L. Weiss, OD, FVI, President