ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- “A lot of the kids are seeing clearly for the first time in their life,” said CEO and President Tim Gresham. 

Seeing clearly is something about twenty five percent students struggle with.

The main goal of Conexus is to remove vision as an obstacle to a child’s success in school. 

Friday, at Clark Elementary School, close to thirty students were able to start taking down that challenge.

After undergoing a series of tests to examine nearsightedness, farsightedness, among other vision problems, students were able to go into the mobile clinic to pick out their future pair of glasses to help them excel in school. 

“We know that, even in Charlottesville, there are kids in a classroom who are not seeing well and not performing well in school. So, we want to find those kids, identify them, and then bring our eye doctor to the school, provide a test, and get glasses on the kids who need to see better to do better in school,” added Gresham.

Around thirty percent of children have an uncorrected vision problem, which affects their performance in schools.

This is why a program like Conexus is so viable to students in our area.

“For these kids to be able to really learn to read and learn other things in school, they’ve got to have the use of their vision, and I saw kids whose lives were changed,” said Senator Creigh Deeds. 

After picking out your glasses, students will be able to receive them two weeks later.

Venable Elementary School students experienced what it was like to be able to see clearly for the first time. 

“If you can imagine that, being a Kindergartener and never really seeing what the floor looks like. Until you’ve got your glasses on, just something simple like what the floor looks like.

Conexus anticipates conducting over five thousand exams to children and has provided eight thousand pairs to students.

Clark Elementary School students will going into the new year with a new outlook on life.