3,000 “pledge cards” and nine corneal donations marked the successes of the fledgling eye bank. In the last 10 years, Southern Eye Bank has facilitated an average of 760 corneal transplants per year. We’ve come a long way!

The New Orleans Eye-Bank was the fourth eye bank to open in the U.S. and the first in the South until 1953. The New Orleans Eye-Bank officially opened its offices at the Hutchinson Memorial Building, 1432 Tulane Avenue in New Orleans. This building was part of the Tulane Medical School, from which “even secretarial help was offered…we paid nothing for the office space, and a great deal of furniture was loaned to us…” (Charles E. Fenner, first president of the New Orleans Eye-Bank board of trustees).

The eye bank was officially incorporated in the state of Louisiana as the “New Orleans Eye-Bank.”