NATCHEZ &045; Angel Coleman certainly appreciated the service she got for free Tuesday .

&uot;My eye gets dry very easily. I get upset, and when it goes haywire, it goes haywire,&uot; Coleman said.

A childhood accident left Coleman, an evacuee from New Orleans, blind in her right eye and with a specific &045; and very painful &045; type of glaucoma. She needs special eye drops to combat the pain and pressure.

That’s where Dr. Bryan Jeanfreau comes in. Coleman saw Jeanfreau, a local optometrist, Tuesday afternoon for an eye exam so she could get a new prescription of medicine.

During the exam Jeanfreau also gave her a new prescription for her glasses, and she was fitted for a new pair.

Coleman is one of 25 evacuees who have received free eye exams at the Family Vision Center in Natchez in a program coordinated through the Evacuee Medical Clinic at the Concordia Parish Courthouse.

Saturday the center, with help from workers from the Helen Keller Foundation, saw 24 evacuees who needed replacements for glasses that were lost or broken or had medical

conditions that needed to be seen to. Some patients were referred on to an opthamologist for treatment.

The Helen Keller Foundation is a national organization that supports research and community efforts to combat blindness.

The foundation provided two staff members Saturday to help with the eye exams.

Family Vision Center office manager Beatrice Jeanfreau had been looking for a way for the clinic to help evacuees, even offering their services to the Red Cross, but hadn’t had any luck.

&uot;We talked to the Red Cross weeks ago but couldn’t get anything set up,&uot; Jeanfreau said. &uot;Then the (Concordia) crisis center put together their clinic and called us about helping out. We just had to figure out how to fund it &045;&160;even working at cost, it was going to take a few thousand just to cover the cost of materials.&uot;

The Natchez Lions Club donated $2,000 to pay for supplies and new glasses for evacuees. Jeanfreau said that money should cover the center’s costs for about 50 patients.