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Lions Club set for balloon festival, vision screenings
By Chris Roark, croark@starlocalnews.com
Organizers are preparing for the Highland Village Lions Club Balloon Festival and Fair, which is celebrating its 25th year.
The event will take place Aug. 17-19 at Copperas Branch Park, off the shores of Lewisville Lake.
The event will feature 20 hot air balloons floating over the lake during the three-day festival.
There will be balloon glows in the evenings of Aug. 17-18. There will also be balloon races Aug. 18-19.
Glen Moyer returns as the balloon announcer, providing fair goers with information and stories about balloons.
The festival will also include a helicopter ride, about 15 carnival rides, food vendors, arts and craft booths and other activities. The Memory Lane Car Show will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 18 and will include a Best in Show contest.
Various bands will perform live music, including the Craig Spence Project, Brandon Barrett, The Revival and Incognito.
Admission is free, though a $5 donation is requested in the parking area.
Money raised at the festival will go toward vision charities, as well as upcoming children eye examinations, another big event the Highland Village Lions Club is hosting.
“We put on this festival every year, not only for the charities, but to get families outside together just before school starts,” said Brenda Lentz, Lions Club Member and past festival chairperson. “You can’t go wrong when you’re having fun and helping a good cause.”
Each year, the Highland Village Lions Club, with help from the Lewisville, Flower Mound and Colleyville lions clubs, offers free optical screenings for children in hopes of catching early signs of vision problems.
The state requires children to be screened beginning at the age of 4. Children provide screening beginning in kindergarten.
“But that leaves out daycare and preschool opportunities,” said Dianne Ashmore, the director of vision and hearing programs for the Highland Village Lions Club.
Ashmore added that parents have had the option of getting the screening done by a pediatrician as part of a checkup. But she said those thorough as an eye doctor’s exam would be.
“Any eye professional says that the sooner a child is screened, they can catch any visual problems that may be developing,” Ashmore said. “Sometimes behavior and social problems are associated with visual problems.”
This year, the club will use a new device called a SPOT Vision Screening, by PediaVision. The new equipment is expected to provide quicker because it scans both eyes simultaneously. It also scans in color, which takes the accuracy one step further.
“In children with very dark-colored eyes, the eyes are so dark that there is very little differentiation between the pupil and the iris,” Ashmore said. “But with the color screening, you can see the difference between the black color and the brown color.”
The $11,000 device, which was purchased with money raised by the club and donations made by three area optometrists, will be showcased Aug. 7 during the Up, Up and Away event from 6-9 p.m. at the Shops at Highland Village. The event will serve as a preview of sorts to the balloon festival with a balloon glow, a sampling of the classic car show, booths and vendors, children’s activities and entertainment. The event will take place between Barnes & Noble, AMC Theater, Blue Goose and Rock Fish.
The equipment will also be on display all three days of the festival.
In addition, the club will offer free vision screenings at the event and will have a donation site for eye glasses to help those in need, as well as a cell phone donation area to be refurbished for soldiers.
For information on the festival, go to www.hvballoonfest.com.
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