The Eye Fund is honoured and very proud to have been chosen as Hull University’s charity for this semester. The students are working hard to raise money for us. One of the students, Jacob Rowlands, Simon’s nephew, wrote the following words. They mean such a lot to the family.
The Eye Fund is a registered charity set up to support people losing their vision.
Since 2007 The Eye Fund has raised £95,000 funding two counsellors working out of St. Paul’s hospital and Ashville Lodge, dedicated to providing support for people in the process of losing their vision. Money also goes to providing much needed speciality equipment to any who are in need of their help.
The Eye Fund was launched in memory of Simon Sherry, son of Carol and Paul, the Eye Fund founders, who after developing retinal cone dystrophy was told he was losing his vision.
Simon was simply told he could be blind in the near future, handed a white stick and was escorted out of the facility. Graphic designer by trade, musician and black belt martial arts practitioner by pleasure, the news was incredibly hard to digest.
Simon died at 38 years old weighing only seven stone. With no support and no hope, he had given up on himself.
Carol and Paul Sherry, along with other family members who cared deeply for Simon, decided no other person should go through what Simon had to. They realised Simon was not alone in his experience, thousands of people were receiving no support upon learning their vision was failing. This had to change.
Quiz nights, gallery exhibitions of Simon’s incredible art work, race night, cocktail nights, and old fashioned bucket collecting, have contributed to Carol and Pauls dream becoming a reality.
