The Twinkle & Eyenstein Story
|
 |
The Twinkle & Eyenstein Story |
Eyenstein says: |
|
Our story begins in April, 1997, in Sharon, Pennsylvania. The Keystone Blind Association received a $1500 donation from the Sharon American Legion Post 299 to initiate a prevention of blindness educational program for children. And that's how we were born!
At first, Twinkle & I didn't even have names! So our Keystone Blind Association friends took us to area elementary schools and introduced us to hundreds and hundreds of children. They were told that we didn't have names, and that we wanted the children to help name us.
And so, the "name the eyeballs" contest began. The Keystone Blind Association received over 500 suggestions! Well, it wasn't long before the names were chosen. Megan Buchanan, of Case Avenue Elementary and Kristi Brown, of Reynolds Elementary suggested the name Twinkle and Candace Miller of Commodore Perry and Stevey Kudelko of Oakview Elementary came up with the name Eyenstein! Each student received a pizza party for their class as a prize for coming up with the winning names!
Once we had proper names, we were able to embark on our mission -- saving children's eyesight! We began to visit area elementary schools where we presented programs on eye safety, eye science, and the prevention of blindness. We began making friends with children everywhere, bringing smiles and laughs to everyone we met. Before long, invitations to Mercer and Lawrence County schools became a yearly tradition!
In the spring of 1998, The Winslow Foundation in Crawford County, and our friends at Sharon American Legion Post #299 sponsored the creation of our coloring book, Twinkle's Tips & Eyenstein's Formula for Eye Safety -or- The Wise Guys Eyes Guide. We bring our coloring book with us to give to students every time we visit classrooms. Our coloring book is filled with fun pictures of Twinkle & I with important messages about eye safety.
We love meeting people. Twinkle & I walk in parades, we make appearances at community events, and sometimes we're even invited to store openings! Every spring, we come to 3rd grade classrooms and invite students to enter an eye safety poster contest. Maybe we'll be seeing you this year!
In the fall of 1999, we started our very own website, Twinkle & Eyenstein's Wise Eye Web, which is where you are right now. We've filled our website with lots of interesting and fun things to do, like...
...and much, much more.
In March, 2000, our website was featured in an issue of 4kids.org and their newspaper supplement for children that appears in 150 cities around the United States, Canada, and even in Japan! WOW! In May, 2000, our local newspaper, The Sharon Herald featured us in an article. You can read the Sharon Herald article here.
We hope you have a great time on our website. You can always send us an e-mail to say hello or to ask us a question. Or, you can !
Thanks for visiting our website!
We hope to see you soon!
Love, Your Pals, Twinkle & Eyenstein
c. 2000 Keystone Blind Association