Thanks to funds donated by Geico and Vistakon, more students are enjoying membership in APHA this year.
As it has done every year since 2002, the car insurance company has donated money to sponsor about 100 free memberships for students. Geico’s relationship with APHA began more than 30 years ago when the company began offering discounted car insurance to APHA members.
“Geico has renewed its commitment to APHA and its members for 2009,” Samantha Abrams, manager of partnership marketing for Geico, said of the long-standing partnership that has helped drive APHA’s goals and mission. “We are proud to be working with APHA to continue its work of public health and service to people.”
Similarly, Vistakon, a division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc., has since 1999 funded free memberships in APHA’s Vision Care Section to 40 students from 19 schools and colleges of optometry.
Stanley Yamane, OD, who served as vice president of professional affairs for Vistakon from 1992 to 2005, established Vistakon’s annual funding of student memberships in APHA’s Vision Care Section. Many of the students who are introduced to APHA through free one-year Vistakon memberships elect to renew their memberships on their own.
The Vistakon-sponsored memberships play an important role in educating optometry students across the country about current public health issues, said Wilson McGriff, one of this year’s recipients.
“While the memberships are greatly appreciated by the individual students who receive them, their benefits have a much broader effect,” McGriff told The Nation’s Health.
