When 14-year-old Logan Laguë first started selling eclipse glasses across Quebec’s Eastern Townships, he had no idea that it would balloon into an undertaking that would keep his whole family busy.
Bundled up and battling the wind whilst selling glasses from a stand in Knowlton, Que., about 100 kilometers southeast of Montreal, Logan has already sold 1,000 pairs ahead of the solar eclipse on April 8, with all of the profits going to charity.
“Around Quebec there’s a lot of people that don’t have any and there’s a big shortage and there’s a lot of people who aren’t getting the right ones,” said Logan.
“It’s really been a mission to help people and make sure that they’re safe during the eclipse.”
It all started when Logan’s grandmother, Kathleen Mullarkey Royea, came back from bingo with news that some of her friends started buying glasses for the upcoming total eclipse that will pass over much of southern Quebec.
After looking into it, Kathleen’s daughter, Cynthia Royea, realized they weren’t the right ones.
“So Logan said, ‘well, Mom, we’re already ordering some,'” said Royea.
“Then different people contacted us ‘Well, I want some for my family’ … We realized that there were a lot of people that hadn’t ordered the right ones.”
Taking to Facebook, Royea, posted about the initiative and how any profits from the sale would go toward Logan’s foundation, Le Projet Logan Ryder, which helps people experiencing homelessness.
She says she was blown away by the response.
“I’m more than shocked,” said Royea.
“There’s people calling us from Saint-Jean. There’s people calling us from Sherbrooke.”
Thinking of people in the regions
Tanya Fell, who works in Knowlton, stopped by to pick up two pairs of glasses on Thursday evening, reaching out to give Logan a hug and to thank him for his initiative.
Fell was happy to support a foundation like Logan’s while also securing glasses for the “once in a lifetime event.”
“These people were kind enough to think of the people in the region,” said Monique Raymond, who lives in Sutton, Que.
She drove 20 minutes to pick up a bundle of the $4 glasses for her family and friends — many of whom have struggled to find a pair.
WATCH | Townshippers are hoping to make eclipse glasses more accessible:
.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:*510w)
Logan Laguë has sold more than 1,000 pairs ahead of the solar eclipse on April 8. The profits will go to his foundation, which helps people experiencing homelessness.
“I looked online to try to order them a couple weeks ago and every time I would try to place an order … I got a message that they were out,” said Raymond.
“Then I hear that some of the glasses are not certified.”
Annie Ducharme, an optician with Doyle Optometrists, says they’ve been hearing the same concerns from people in Cowansville, Que.
“What people are really scared [of is] to make sure that they’re safe. That’s the tricky part,” said Ducharme.
While she notes that checking the ISO certification on an online listing is relatively simple, Ducharme says demand for the glasses has surged in recent weeks.
Last Thursday, the eye clinic in Cowansville was running low ahead of another shipment of eclipse glasses after already selling more than 300 pairs.
“We never thought that [there] would be that much demand,” said Ducharme, adding that they never advertised the glasses online.
“The more people talk about it, the more people come in.”
She says although some clients have called the office inquiring about testing the glasses, the office is not able to test them other than to check the printed certification.
‘Much of the product out there is perfectly safe’: expert
Dr. Ralph Chou, a leading expert on eclipse eye safety, says people should be on the lookout for the ISO 12312-2 standard. If it doesn’t have an ISO label, it is not a fully compliant product, he said.
Chou says there should also be special warning labels on the packaging, directing people to closely supervise children who are using the product. This section will also typically contain information about the manufacturer and testing house that performed the compliance testing.
“If that language isn’t there, then you start asking questions,” said Chou, professor emeritus of optometry and vision science at the University of Waterloo.
Once people receive their glasses in the mail, Chou says they can look through the lenses — which should be total blackout— and shine a bright LED flashlight through the lens.
“If you look at that through the filter and you can just barely see that discharge. Then it will probably be perfectly okay,” said Chou.
“I suspect that much of the product out there is perfectly safe. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about what is safe, what is not safe and how to use the product.”
He says the number of counterfeit glasses on the market has not been as serious as it was leading up to the 2017 eclipse.
Chou, having looked at the eclipse glasses Royea and her son purchased online through Amazon, says they were submitted to the AAS Solar Eclipse Task Force for evaluation and were found to be in compliance with the ISO 12312-2 standard. Chou was one of the members who completed the assessments.