Eye Surgeons of Indiana Employees Reflect on Their Passion for the TTLG Gala

By: Seth Johnson

The Indiana Blind Children’s Foundation (IBCF) is once again grateful to have Eye Surgeons of Indiana as the Presenting Sponsor of the 2025 Through the Looking Glass Gala, which will take place on Saturday, Sept. 6 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Noblesville.

Stacy Ress, HR Generalist (left), and Cristina Brown, HR Director (right), are seen standing side by side at A Taste of Indiana, both are smiling at the camera. They are wearing matching black t-shirts with blue Eye Surgeons of Indiana graphic designs. Behind them, there are shelves stacked with items that look like baskets, some boxes, and various supplies, suggesting they are in a work area. A relationship that dates back to 2018, Eye Surgeons of Indiana CEO Tina Allen first connected with Indiana Blind Children’s Foundation CEO Laura Alvarado in the same year when Eye Surgeons of Indiana employed a student as part of the Student Training and Employment Program at Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI). Over time, the relationship between Eye Surgeons of Indiana and IBCF has continued to blossom, with Eye Surgeons of Indiana employees now serving on IBCF’s Through the Looking Glass Gala Committee, in addition to regularly sponsoring a gift basket each year for a graduating ISBVI senior.

“The group itself is just amazing,” says Cristina Brown, who serves on the Gala Committee alongside fellow Eye Surgeons of Indiana employee Stacy Ress. “They are so invested in doing the work and trying to make the Gala as successful as possible. They’re just a great group to work with and are very dedicated.”

Having now served on the Gala Committee since 2022, Ress says the work Alvarado has done to foster meaningful relationships through the event is quite admirable.

“Laura has done a great job in creating passionate involvement in the organization,” Ress says. “The people working on the Gala Committee, and even folks that are tangential, come back year after year, and I think that’s a fruit of Laura’s labor in creating really meaningful relationships. She does a great job of communicating the work that the foundation does and really creates that buy-in. So you see similar donors year after year, and you see bigger donations year after year. I think that’s a testament to Laura.”

After attending the Gala multiple times with keynote addresses from MasterChef Season 6 winner Christine Ha (known as “the Blind Cook”), racecar driver Dan Parker (known as “the World’s Fastest Blind Man”), and more, Allen says she especially looks forward to hearing the event’s keynote speakers.

Eye Surgeons of Indiana CEO Tina Allen poses for a photo on the red carpet with her husband, Walter, at the 2024 Through the Looking Glass Gala. They are standing in front of a step-and-repeat with various sponsor logos, including a logo for Eye Surgeons of Indiana. “Hearing the stories from the speakers is very inspiring, so I’m always interested in that and how they got to where they are,” Allen says.

For example, it was a shared shopping experience that led 2025 Through the Looking Glass Gala keynote speakers Bradford and Bryan Manning down the path to start their charitable clothing brand Two Blind Brothers.

“We lose each other everywhere we go, and we came out of the store half-an-hour later and had both bought the same Henley, three-button shirt,” Bradford says. “We were like, ‘What? You picked out the same shirt?’ And then, we realized part of it was that if you can’t see the labels and price that well, you first see if you like the way something feels. So we were like, ‘What if there’s something to this? What if we started a brand that focused on this vigilance to fabrics and sense of touch, and we just made it charitable?’”

As Allen says in this video, Eye Surgeons of Indiana’s support for IBCF “goes beyond just donating and sponsoring.” Through volunteer opportunities like serving on the Gala Committee and helping to prepare gift baskets for graduating seniors at ISBVI, her staff regularly has opportunities to give back in meaningful ways, which is something she’s thankful for.

“It’s a way for our employees to give back to the community in our own field,” Allen says. “That’s special to us. We always want to try to give back to the community and do something local especially. But to be able to do it in eyes is really important to us.”