{"id":9459,"date":"2023-02-09T11:20:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T16:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=9459"},"modified":"2023-03-16T14:55:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T18:55:31","slug":"youtube-star-mrbeast-sponsors-catarct-surgeries-for-1000-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2023\/02\/youtube-star-mrbeast-sponsors-catarct-surgeries-for-1000-people.html","title":{"rendered":"YouTube Star MrBeast Sponsors Cataract Surgeries For 1,000 People"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9465\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9465\" style=\"width: 608px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2023\/02\/mr-beast-credit-wikimedia-commons.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9465\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2023\/02\/mr-beast-credit-wikimedia-commons.png\" alt=\"mr beast\" width=\"608\" height=\"598\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9465\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fidias\/Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>YouTube superstar MrBeast\u00a0is making the world a better, clearer place for at least 1,000 people. His latest stunt is paying for cataract removal surgery for 1,000 people who were near blind or blind but couldn\u2019t afford the surgery.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent video, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, said, \u201cWe\u2019re curing a thousand people\u2019s blindness.\u201d The video currently has 98 million views. It featured moving before and after images of patients with clear vision after the surgery. The YouTuber also gave some participants cash donations and other gifts.<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Levenson,\u00a0an ophthalmologist and surgeon, worked with Donaldson to perform the first round of surgeries in Jacksonville, Florida. Levenson has coordinated<a href=\"https:\/\/visionispriceless.org\/gift-of-sight\/\">\u00a0the \u201cGift of Sight\u201d program<\/a>\u00a0for over 20 years, which provides free cataract surgery for uninsured patients who are legally blind due to cataracts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHalf of all blindness in the world is people who need a 10-minute surgery,\u201d Levenson says in the video, referring to the cataract-removal surgery. Levenson explained to CNN that he became inspired to help people access cataract surgery after undergoing his cataract correction surgery.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TJ2ifmkGGus\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the days and weeks after my cataract surgery, I was stunned by how bright and beautiful and vivid the world was,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I was shocked by the idea that there are hundreds of millions, probably 200 million people around the world, who are blind or nearly blind from cataracts and who don\u2019t have access to the surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Levenson got a call from a member of Donaldson\u2019s team in September. \u201cI had never heard of MrBeast,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I almost hung up. But I gratefully did not hang up.\u201d They started by calling homeless shelters and free clinics to create a list of patients in the Jacksonville area who needed cataract surgery but could not afford it. Eventually, they had a group of 40 patients \u2013 and Levenson performed all of their surgeries in a single day, starting at 7 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Levenson said that patients were in \u201cdisbelief that somebody would seek them out to rescue them from blindness and then have the kindness and generosity of spirit to offer the surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ophthalmologist also connected Donaldson\u2019s team with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.seeintl.org\/\">SEE International,<\/a>\u00a0for which he serves as the chief medical officer. The nonprofit provides free eye care around the world to patients in need. The organization helped Donaldson reach even more patients, for a total of 1,000 surgeries completed around three weeks. The video shows patients receiving the surgery in Jamaica, Honduras, Namibia, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam and Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>Levenson said he hopes the video and Donaldson\u2019s generosity inspire \u201ca concerted effort to end needless blindness.\u201d \u201cIf MrBeast can light a fire, and if we can get governmental and private support behind it, we can end half of all the blindness in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout all that much cost, and with incredible gains in human productivity and human potential.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s so rare that people go out of their way to help the less fortunate. Hopefully, MrBeast\u2019s act of kindness will inspire others to follow suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YouTube superstar MrBeast\u00a0is making the world a better, clearer place for at least 1,000 people. His latest stunt is paying for cataract removal surgery for 1,000 people who were near blind or blind but couldn\u2019t afford the surgery. In a recent video, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, said, \u201cWe\u2019re curing a thousand people\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":9465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[111,983,12,607],"tags":[956,1854,678],"class_list":["post-9459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-inspiring-events","category-inspiring-people","category-people-who-do-good","tag-inspiring-people","tag-mrbeast","tag-people-who-do-good"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>YouTube Star MrBeast Sponsors Cataract Surgeries For 1,000 People<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"YouTube star MrBeast is making the world a clearer place for 1,000 people after sponsoring cataract surgies for the blind and near blind.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2023\/02\/youtube-star-mrbeast-sponsors-catarct-surgeries-for-1000-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"YouTube Star MrBeast Sponsors Cataract Surgeries For 1,000 People\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"YouTube star MrBeast is making the world a clearer place for 1,000 people after sponsoring cataract surgies for the blind and near blind.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2023\/02\/youtube-star-mrbeast-sponsors-catarct-surgeries-for-1000-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" 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