Colorblind Elgin student gifted glasses allowing him to see colors

ELGIN, Okla. (TNN) - A colorblind Elgin fifth-grader can now see colors thanks to Elgin Middle School’s Winter Wishes program.

For that program, each student makes two wishes, one for themselves and one for others, that the staff tries to grant. Eleven fifth grade students chose to use that wish to help Parker Keith in a big way.

What started as shock quickly turned to joy.

"I can finally get to see colors again. It’s going to be awesome,” Keith said. “It’s hard. Because when you have to color stuff, mine is different and everybody else’s isn’t.”

When Keith woke up Monday morning, he didn’t have any idea what was in store for him. In fact, even as he was sitting in the cafeteria just moments away from a life-changing gift, he didn’t realize what was coming.

"Everybody around the table was saying it was me. Then I turned around and saw my parents and they said it was me,” Keith said.

Even at that point, he had no idea what was in the box. But once he opened it, he saw something familiar.

"I thought it was just something really cool until I opened the box. My mom quizzed me on color blind stuff before and I saw what the website was for and it had like dots under the name and I opened the box and that’s what it was. It was the glasses,” Keith said.

Parker quickly put on the glasses and took in his surroundings, pointing out different colors for the very first time.

"That’s what the program is about. It can sometimes be easy to get caught in the spreadsheets, caught in the fundraising, to see those moments, to see those expressions on kids, it’s magic. We’ve called this year extraordinary magic, extraordinary kindness to everyone always. And he had an extraordinary reaction and it brought us extraordinary joy,” said Melissa Evon with Elgin Middle School.

Keith said there are a few things he’s excited to finally see in color.

"The American Flag and the ocean,” Keith said.

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