Mildred Weisenfeld

For 50 years, Weisenfeld was a one-woman campaign to increase funding for eye research, despite losing her own vision and having no scientific training.

In 1946, 10 years after she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, Weisenfeld founded the National Council to Combat Blindness (NCCB), New York, at age 25 with $8 and no office.

[3] Addressing how other nonprofits focused on adjusting people to their condition of vision problems, Weisenfeld was quoted May 23, 1948, in the New York Mirror as saying "something must be done beyond giving them a dog, a cane, or a Braille book.

[4] Over the decades as Fight for Sight's executive director, Weisenfeld paid herself no salary (she lived on family money) and tirelessly worked six- or seven-day weeks to raise millions of dollars for research and launch the careers of many prominent vision researchers through Fight for Sight and its local women's leagues in New York (Manhattan; Brooklyn: Park Circle, Bensonhurst, Shorefront; Queens: North Shore, Seaside; Bronx, Long Island), Northern NJ, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Greater, Main Line, Cheltenham, and Northeast) and Florida (South Palm Beach, Hollywood, Delray, Deerfield Beach, Miami).

Weisenfeld was well connected with numerous celebrities and politicians to draw attention to her organization and its annual fundraiser the "Lights On" variety show from 1949 into the early 1990s, first led by Milton Berle, and later included Bob Hope, Barbra Streisand,[5] Sammy Davis Junior, Stevie Wonder, Liza Minnelli, Earl Wilson (columnist),[6] Harry Belafonte, Ed Sullivan, Fannie Hurst, Pearl Bailey, Mel Allen, Peter Falk, Yul Brynner, Paul Anka, Eartha Kitt, Jackie Mason, Tommy Smothers, Joe Frazier, Jerry Stiller, Carol Channing, Tony Randall, Peggy Lee, and many others.

On the 25th anniversary of Fight for Sight in 1971, President Richard Nixon and New York City Mayor John Lindsay recognized Weisenfeld's work with congratulatory letters.