What a vision: tea and sight firms partner


MILLERTON — Prevent Blindness Tri-State has paired with Harney and Sons Fine Teas to market a tea that will not only please its drinkers but will also raise money for the health organization. The two will celebrate their partnership Friday, May 11, during a "Sip for Sight" event at the Harney Tea Factory from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Celebration Citron Green Tea promises to titillate the palate while striving for better sight.

"This is a fundraiser, but it’s also to let people know of this organization that’s been around for 100 years," said company marketing specialist Francine Harcourt Caplan. "We really want to spread the good word about this organization."

Prevent Blindness Tri-State is an affiliate of Prevent Blindness America, a group dedicated to saving sight and preventing vision loss through vision screening services, information and education programs, and advocacy.

"People just aren’t aware enough about eye health. It’s low on the radar screen, but 50 percent of all eye illnesses could be treated if you are aware of them," said Kathryn Garre-Ayars, president and CEO of Prevent Blindness Tri-State.

Prevent Blindness provides not only vision screenings, but "eye exams, glasses and other vision services for low-income children to help prevent permanent vision loss and learning difficulties," according to its literature.

It also "provides information, education, screening, referral and follow-up for low-income, older adults and seniors to prevent permanent vision loss."

"The eye is probably the most overlooked of all our senses," Garrre-Ayars said. "The potential for eye disease in children and adults is huge and we just don’t do enough to prevent it."

"It really is very important," Caplan said. "And when you lose your sight, you’re losing a quality of life."

The organization’s mission works in unison with the purpose of Harney’s green tea, which is a wellness tea. Studies have shown that anti-oxidants — carotenoids and falvanoids found in green tea — can delay the onset of eye disease.

"John Harney really gets it. He understands about eye health, which makes this a great collaboration," Caplan said.

Prevent Blindness, which helped design the label on the tea canister, will receive 20 percent of all sales of the Celebration Citron Green Tea.

The fundraiser itself will also help garner more money for the health organization. Tickets are $25 per person or $50 for patron tickets. Those who attend the event, which is to be hosted by master tea blender John Harney, will get to participate in a silent auction and tour of the Harney Tea Factory.

"We’ve been very fortunate to receive the kind of support that we’ve received," Garre-Ayars said. "The community has been so generous in donating silent auction items. We wanted this to be a holistic approach."

The Harney Tea Factory is located on Route 22, just a half-mile south of the traffic light at routes 22 and 44 in Millerton.

"It’s going to be a fun event. You can have a vision screening. It’s really a way for us to get to know the community and for the community to get to know us," Caplan said.

For more information on Prevent Blindness, call 1-800-850-2020 or log onto www.preventblindesstristate.org.


 

Latest News

Bunny Williams's 
‘Life in the Garden’
Rizzoli

In 1979, interior decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, had a fateful meeting with a poorly cared for — in Williams’s words, “unspoiled” — 18th-century white clapboard home.

“I am not sure if I believe in destiny, but I do know that after years of looking for a house, my palms began to perspire when I turned onto a tree-lined driveway in a small New England village,” Williams wrote in her 2005 book, “An Affair with a House.” The Federal manor high on a hill, along with several later additions that included a converted carriage shed and an 1840-built barn, were constructed on what had been the homestead property of Falls Village’s Brewster family, descendants of Mayflower passenger William Brewster, an English Separatist and Protestant leader in Plymouth Colony.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Creators: Sitting down with Garet Wierdsma

Garet&Co dancers

Jennifer Almquist

On Saturday, March 9, the people of Norfolk, Connecticut, enjoyed a dance performance by northern Connecticut-based Garet&Co, in Battell Chapel, titled INTERIOR, consisting of four pieces: “Forgive Her, Hera,” “Something We Share,” “bodieshatewomen,” and “I kinda wish the apocalypse would just happen already.”

At the sold-out show in the round, the dancers, whose strength, grace and athleticism filled the hall with startling passion, wove their movements within the intimate space to the rhythms of contemporary music. Wierdsma choreographed each piece and curated the music. The track she created for “Something We Share” eerily contained vintage soundtracks from life guidance recordings for the perfect woman of the ‘50s. The effect, with three dancers in satin slips posing before imaginary mirrors, was feminist in its message and left the viewer full of vicarious angst.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dealing with invasive species

Sam Schultz, terrestrial invasive species coordinator with PRISM, is holding a tool she calls a “best friend” in the battle against invasives: the hand grubber. She was one of the presenters at the Copake Grange for a talk about invasive species Saturday, March 2.

L. Tomaino

According to Sam Schultz, terrestrial invasive species coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM), one of the best ways to battle invasive species is with a hand tool called the hand grubber.

In her work in managing invasive species, she refers to it as a “best friend.” Schultz and Colleen Lutz, assistant biologist with the New York Natural Heritage Program, delivered a lecture on invasive species at the Copake Grange Saturday, March 2.

Keep ReadingShow less
Arts Day for young creatives

Fourth graders at Arts Day

Lynn Mellis Worthington

Fourth graders from all of the schools in Region One gathered Wednesday, March 6, at the independent Kent School to expand their artistic horizons.

It was the 28th year that Region One has held Fourth Grade Arts Day, and this year’s event was coordinated by Kent Center School music teacher David Poirier. He quickly pointed out, however, that it was a team effort involving all of the art and music teachers in the region. He also saluted Geoff Stewart of Kent School, chair of the performing arts department and director of the theater.

Keep ReadingShow less