In the United States, an estimated 80 million people have potentially blinding eye diseases, 3 million have low vision, 1.1 million people are legally blind, and 200,000 are more severely visually impaired.

More than two-thirds of visually impaired adults are over age 65 years.

By 1999, almost 34 million persons in the United States were expected to be over age 65 years; that number is expected to more than double by the year 2030, reaching 20 percent of the nation's total population.

The fastest growing age group in rural America is residents 85 and older. A large portion of rural seniors live at home alone, without a spouse or family caretaker to provide or obtain necessary health care services.

The East Texas Lighthouse for the Blind covers 46 counties.

The majority of these counties cover rural areas. The Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) estimates that over 54,000 people in these 46 counties are considered legally blind (2% of the population).