CNN
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YouTube famous person MrBeast is making the world clearer – for no less than 1,000 folks.
The content material creator’s newest stunt is paying for cataract elimination for 1,000 individuals who had been blind or near-blind however couldn’t afford the surgical procedure.
“We’re curing a thousand folks’s blindness,” says MrBeast – actual identify Jimmy Donaldson – within the Saturday video, which reached over 32 million views as of Sunday afternoon.
The video options touching before-and-after footage of sufferers seeing with clear imaginative and prescient after ending the surgical procedure. The YouTuber additionally gave money donations and different items to among the contributors.
Jeff Levenson, an ophthalmologist and surgeon, labored with Donaldson to carry out the primary spherical of surgical procedures in Jacksonville, Florida. Levenson has coordinated the “Reward of Sight” program for over 20 years, which supplies free cataract surgical procedure for uninsured sufferers who’re legally blind attributable to cataracts.
“Half of all blindness on this planet is individuals who want a 10-minute surgical procedure,” Levenson says within the video, referring to the cataract elimination surgical procedure.
Levenson defined to CNN he grew to become impressed to assist folks entry cataract surgical procedure after present process his personal cataract correction surgical procedure.
“Within the days and weeks after my very own cataract surgical procedure, I used to be surprised by how vivid and delightful and vivid the world was,” he mentioned. “However I used to be shocked by the concept that there are tons of of tens of millions, in all probability 200 million folks all over the world, who’re blind or practically blind from cataracts and who don’t have entry to the surgical procedure.”
Levenson acquired a name from a member of Donaldson’s staff in September. “I had by no means heard of MrBeast,” he mentioned. “So I virtually hung up. However I gratefully didn’t cling up.”
They began by calling homeless shelters and free clinics to create an inventory of sufferers within the Jacksonville space who wanted cataract surgical procedure however couldn’t afford it. Ultimately, they’d a bunch of 40 sufferers – and Levenson carried out all of their surgical procedures in a single day, beginning at 7 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m.
Levenson mentioned that sufferers had been in “disbelief that any person would truly search them out to to rescue them from blindness, after which have the kindness and generosity of spirit to supply the surgical procedure.”
The ophthalmologist additionally related Donaldson’s staff with SEE Worldwide, for which he serves because the chief medical officer. The nonprofit supplies free eyecare all over the world to sufferers in want. The group helped Donaldson attain much more sufferers, for a complete of 1,000 surgical procedures accomplished round three weeks. The video exhibits sufferers receiving the surgical procedure in Jamaica, Honduras, Namibia, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam and Kenya.
Levenson mentioned he hopes the video and Donaldson’s generosity encourage “a concerted effort to finish unnecessary blindness.”
“If MrBeast can gentle a fireplace, and if we will get governmental and personal help behind it, we will finish half of all of the blindness on this planet,” he mentioned. “With out all that a lot price, and with unimaginable positive factors in human productiveness and human potential.”