TAMPA, Fla.—Like many optometric practices around the country in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, Bright Eyes Family Vision Care and Bright Eyes Kids based here, have been open only for urgent and emergency patient eyecare needs, closed for routine eyecare since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Nathan Bonilla-Warford owns and operates Bright Eyes with his wife, Cristina Bonilla-Warford. Dr. Beth Knighton joined the team in 2014. As busy as the team is in dealing with the business issues and human side of the crisis, Bonilla-Warford said that staying in touch with patients during this time is very important.

"We want to make sure that we are constantly doing outreach to patients, letting them know that we are thinking about them. It's different than traditional marketing, where we're not doing recalls or sales-oriented things, but we want to be there for them in supportive and creative ways. "

For some time, Bonilla-Warford has used vision therapy in his practice and has been a believer in Lego figures and toys as a way to engage children he works with. Recognizing that so many children were staying at home with their parents during this time, and inspired by his own 13-year-old daughter who was interested in updating her own Lego set, he was struck with an idea to develop an at-home activity to keep children occupied, connected to eyecare, and give them a way to solve a creative challenge and win a free Lego set (or a gift card for one).

 
 
So Bonilla-Warford launched the Bright Eyes #LegoGlassesChallenge. On the practice's Facebook page, he launched the contest by asking, "Kids bored? Want an activity to keep them occupied AND win free Lego sets?"

Parents are asked to have their child (under 18 years of age) build some eyeglasses with Lego bricks. They do need to be wearable—at least for a minute or two. They're asked to take a picture of the child wearing their Lego glasses and post that photo as a comment on the Facebook post. "Have your child write a sentence or more about what the idea is behind their Lego glasses on or before April 30, 2020. On May 1, 2020, the Bright Eyes Staff will vote on the entries. The criteria of the judging will be the creativity of the Lego glasses they build. "Go crazy and have fun!" Bright Eyes writes "The more imaginative, the better!"


Then, friends and family can vote on each entry via their Likes. “On May 2, we will announce the two winners. We would LOVE to personally deliver the Lego sets to you, but we think that it is safer to just mail you a $50 gift card."

"This is just a fun event, helping us make sure we're consistently doing outreach to our patients, but letting them know we're thinking about them in creative ways," Dr. Bonilla-Warford told Click. Since the contest started, the local middle school PTA reached out and are sharing it, as are some local businesses, and another local optometry office shared it as well.