Gardnerville resident Vince Pacheco will be a member of a team bringing eyeglasses to Bulgaria.
Vince manages the optical department at the Sears in Reno for a company called Luxottica Retail, the parent firm for LensCrafters and Pearl Vision among others.
The company has a charity program that allows its employees to go on missions to help people with vision problems.
"I applied to go on an international mission and I was selected from among thousands of people who apply," the 39-year-old said. "The company sends people all over the world."
Vince and his group will bring used eyeglasses with them for residents of the eastern European country.
"We collect eyeglasses over the course of the year and send them out," he said. "We're not allowed to give out used eyeglasses inside the United States."
Vince said his group will be handling between 30,000-35,000 eyeglasses during the 10 days he'll be in the country.
"This is a not a vacation," he said. "You're working and it's very rewarding."
Travel time to Bulgaria is 17 hours, much of which will be in the air.
"It's a long trip but this is an amazing experience," said Pacheco, a first time overseas traveler. "This is a once in a lifetime thing."
Vince has worked for Luxottica for 13 years, but is a recent arrival to Carson Valley, having arrived here two years ago. He just received his state optician's license in Nevada.
His mother, Colleen Popp, has lived in Gardnerville for several years, and the family transferred here to be close to her.
Vince and his wife, Carrie, have a son, Andrew. He commutes to Reno from his home in Pineview Estates, but says it's worth it.
"I love living down there," he said.
Visit www.givethegiftofsight.org for more information about the program.
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East Fork Fire Capt.Terry Taylor returned to the Valley on Friday from being one of 150 evaluators for firefighter grants at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md.
Terry was one of only five people from Nevada to go and was selected due to his wide range of fire service experience.
"During the week I was there, my group of 150 fire people looked at 1,800 grant applications," Terry said.
He personally reviewed 76 different proposals.
"It is absolutely unusual in the federal system where peers have been asked to decide the final grant outcomes," Terry said. "And I'll tell you my peers, like me, were pretty frugal with the money."
And because the people reviewing the grants were professional firefighters, they were able to do a good job of cutting through the bureaucrateese.
"What I was proudest to see was that a volunteer firefighter in South Dakota could get on the Internet at the public library and write a one-page proposal for some needed equipment and it got funded. Conversely, the slick guys who had all the money and a grant writer wrote one for something they sort of needed and got hosed," he said.
While in Maryland, Terry sat with the head of the National Fire Protection Association and next to the president of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Association,
"There were chief officers from all over the country there."
Reviewing all those grants has sharpened Terry's grant writing skills, he said.
"I came back with an improved skill set that I can put to work for us and Tahoe-Douglas," he said.
-- Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 215.
