YouTube starMrBeastis helping 1,000 people see a little more clearly.
The 24-year-old YouTube sensation worked with Jeff Levenson,an ophthalmologist and surgeonbased in Jacksonville, Florida, whoseGift of Sightprogram offers free cataract surgery to people who are legally blind and uninsured. He performed the first round of surgeries for Donaldson.
MrBeast/youtube
When Donaldson called Levenson to chat about the project, the doctor almost didn’t take the call.
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“When MrBeast first called me, he enthusiastically described wanting to do a thousand cataract surgeries on blind people, all around the world, in three weeks!” he recalls.
“I’d never heard of him, the whole thing sounded crazy, he sounded like a 12-year-old, and I almost hung up,” he tells PEOPLE exclusively. “So glad I didn’t.”
MrBeast helps 1,000 blind people see.MrBeast/youtube
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To find patients that needed the cataract surgery but couldn’t afford it, Levenson told CNN he and Donaldson called homeless shelters and free clinics in Florida. They grew the list to 40 and Levenson did the first round of procedures in one day, starting at 7 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m., according to CNN.
The YouTuber didn’t stop there. Donaldson’s video showed people gaining their vision back in Mexico, Honduras, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam, Kenya, and Jamaica. Working withSEE International, a nonprofit that provides free eye care around the world to patients in need, he reached his goal of helping 1,000 people see more clearly in just under three weeks. In the video, patients cry as they are able to see clearly after months, or even years, of blurred vision.
Leveson is absolutely thrilled with how the video — and the undertaking — turned out.
“Having the thing you love to do shared with tens of millions of people is a unique pleasure,” he tells PEOPLE, adding that he heard from people around the world after the video was released. “First the East coast, then Central America, then the West, and then India and Philippines, and Tonga and Africa,” he says.
“The idea of ending needless blindness binds us all together,” he added. “It’s time to see it done.”
source: people.com
