I have shared why I started this one-eyed community page, what this community teaches me, and how this community greatly benefits me. Now I want to share how I will continue to give back to this community. I have unbelievably big dreams for this brand and community. This is my first time doing anything like this and I don’t always know what I am doing or how to do everything perfectly, there is a lot of fear around these dreams. I could easily fail at any moment. What keeps me moving forward are the small interactions I have with the people in this community. If all else fails and I only help a few people then I feel I have still reached my purpose.
Most of the strong interactions have been on social media. Individuals reaching out and opening up to share their stories are invaluable to me. I love seeing everyone comment on each other’s personal experiences. It is truly inspiring.
I had a woman reach out to me on IG and told me that she was at the hair salon and overheard a conversation about prosthetic eyes. She also has a prosthetic eye herself. The woman at the salon told her about the EYEHESIVE community. My heart dropped.
In-person connections have been very limited so far from my experience. However, I am hoping that changes. I know a guy in AA who has a prosthetic eye so it that cool for me to have that connection.
One time I was coming out of Domino’s while picking up a pizza and a man stopped me at the door, saw my eye, and asked what happened. Before I could answer, he said “watch this” and proceeded to pop out his prosthetic eye. Those are the connections and interactions I strive for. When that happens I try and guide these people to our EYEHESIVE page so the rest of you can connect, share love, and support.
Currently, I feel a very strong force moving me forward in this journey so I will keep working toward those dreams. I haven’t done any of this alone. I ask for help almost every step of the way. Right now I have bribed someone in my sober living to help me edit this blog. I have an amazingly talented friend (who I met while trying to start EYEHESIVE) that helps me with social media stuff, honestly, that isn’t my natural strong suit at all and that is okay. This has all been an insane amount of work, getting stories collected, edited, and posted. All the social media content, website, emails, blogging, outreach, sourcing adhesive eye patches, and all the other little fine details of branding, business licenses, business bank accounts, blah, blah, blah. With absolutely zero pay. I don’t mind because I am passionate about this and believe in what I am doing, it’s not about the profits. We will see if I can pull this all off. I hope you stick around to watch. :)
Missions:
To provide an offering of unique adhesive eye patches to those seeking alternatives to the mediocre and basic adhesive eye patches currently available.
To create a community of people who have been affected by visual impairment, whether that be from genetics, injury, or other medical reasons. Continue to provide a forum where they can share their stories while bringing people closer together so they can feel less alone.
To create a charitable initiative that will fund some of the expenses that come with eye injuries and prosthetic eyes.
To create videos with different ocularists and eye surgeons helping to answer a lot of questions about the prosthetic eye process, eye removal, other eye surgeries, and issues.
Next step: Eye connect virtual: The conference is dedicated to helping those affected by visual impairment. My hope is for this to help empower individuals to feel less guilt or rejection and instead gain more self-love, community, and reassurance through this conference. They will learn tools to overcome self-sabotage, step more into self-acceptance, and find peace from within.
Our mission with the Eye Connect Conferences is to create a safe space for connection, support, and healing for those impacted by visual impairment. Eye Connect allows others the opportunity to be seen in their true authentic self and come together as a community.
The Dream, With the brand EYEHESIVE we will be able to travel the world helping people with their eye needs. We will hold charity events and fundraising campaigns to raise money for people to get prosthetic eyes and have certain eye surgeries. We will be global at some point. On the 28th of every month, the proceeds of the adhesive eye patches will go to helping others. Hold Zoom and in-person events to build relationships in the community.
The Vision is that EYEHESIVE has a strong social media presence, sharing other people’s stories, and connecting with people from all over the world who have one eye or a vision impairment story. An interactive, loving community that is supportive of one another. Build strong connections with ocularists and eye surgeons. Produce video content of all of the questions this community has about their vision loss. All resources and connections are easy to find, helpful, and supportive. No one will feel alone with what they are going through and they won't have any unanswered questions. We will lift each other up in times of need.
The goal: Supply high-functioning adhesive eye patches that will fund all these expenses and we will be able to help people not only with their adhesive eye patch needs but the needs of many other things for many other people. Continue blogging about my experiences as an individual in our community.
I know these are terrifyingly big dreams, visions, and goals. I am not sure exactly how I will get there just yet. But one baby step at a time, doing the next right thing. Things so far have been unfolding beautifully, and I have faith they will continue to do so.
Do you have your own dreams, visions, or goal so big they terrify you? I am really curious about what they are! Write them down, all of them! Get clear on the ones that are most important, share them with others, and start to take action on them.
Do you have things you want to see from this community I could add in only to make this dream even bigger? I am also really good at asking for help, so If you have any helpful suggestions to get me to these goals I would love to hear them. You can contact me at customercare@eyehesive.com I appreciate all you already do for this community. I am excited as we continue to work, grow, and learn together, let's see what happens.