Eye Donor Awareness Month – Mar. 1, 2027

Expected Eye Donor Awareness Month Deals

Throughout Eye Donor Awareness Month, the focus shifts from commercial deals to profound acts of giving. Organizations like the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) lead awareness campaigns, often partnering with corporate sponsors such as Alcon and Johnson & Johnson Vision for donation matching programs. Look for local eye banks to host educational webinars, virtual events, and registration drives. Many vision care providers, including Prevent Blindness and Lions Clubs International, will promote the cause through their networks, encouraging community engagement and support for corneal research. We will update this page with confirmed live events and campaigns as March approaches.

History of Eye Donor Awareness Month

Since the dawn of time, humans have had the ability to see. However, the practice of eye donation and surgery to help with visual impairment didn’t come until much later. Eduard Konrad Zirm, M.D., accomplished the first successful full-thickness corneal transplant in the early 20th century. This sparked a long period of research and development in the corneal transplantation area, resulting in the creation of novel procedures. During its existence, Zirm’s eye bank served over 47,000 patients.

Donated eyes are collected, prepared, and distributed by eye banks for cornea transplants and research. Eye banks currently offer tissue for over 80,000 cornea transplants in the United States each year to treat various ailments such as keratoconus and corneal scarring. The white of the eye is sometimes used to surgically restore the recipient’s eyes. The retrieval of organs or tissues from a deceased organ donor is referred to as ‘recovery.’

Although ‘harvesting’ and ‘procurement’ have been used in the past, they are now regarded as unsuitable, harsh, and possibly inaccurate terms. When an organ/tissue donor passes away, the donor’s next of kin or a donor registry is contacted to get authorization for donation. The donor’s eyes are then recovered by a recovery technician who is dispatched to the hospital, funeral home, or medical examiner’s office. The entire region of the eye, known as the ‘globe’ can be surgically removed, or simply the cornea can be excised in-situ and stored. In eye banking, several storage media are used such as commercial preparations and organ culture media. The eye tissue is then taken to an eye bank to be examined and prepared.

The Eye Bank Association of America (E.B.A.A.) has established comprehensive medical standards for eye banks and standardized the training and certification of eye bank technicians. National Eye Donor Month celebrates the work of those in the E.B.A.A. and everyone else that makes giving the gift of sight possible.

How Businesses Can Celebrate Eye Donor Awareness Month