Scituate - Jose Garcia and Charlie Sullivan have never met. The former is a young man who lives in El Salvador, and the latter is a 5-year old from Scituate.

But because of Charlie, Jose can see a lot better.

Through a charity, Jose inherited Charlie’s old pair of eyeglasses — and not just any glasses, but Spiderman eyeglasses, along with matching Spiderman gear.

Last Christmas, Charlie’s family wanted the 5-year old to learn that the holiday is something more than just a day for getting presents. They wanted him to learn about giving to the community. So the Sullivans began looking for a charity to which Charlie could contribute. It had to be something tangible, something that he could do while understanding how his actions were helping someone else.

When his mother Bernadette read that family’s eye doctor, Dr. David Milliken, was collecting glasses to bring to the poor of El Salvador, it seemed the perfect opportunity.

“He actually said, ‘What about my glasses?’” Bernadette said of her son’s reaction to hearing about the trip.

Milliken, an eye doctor from Scituate, was working with others along the South Shore to collect eyeglasses for the needy in El Salvador. When they got there, Milliken and the other doctors administered eye tests and give medical care to the locals. A computer program then matched the patients to those donated glasses that best fit their prescription.

“We talked a lot about the people that needed glasses to see and play,” Bernadette said, “Charlie has thick prescriptions.”

“I wanted to do something,” Charlie said. “I wanted to help a boy see.”

Charlie donated his Spiderman eyeglasses, a Spiderman case, action figure and coloring book. It was important to Charlie, his mother said, that anyone receiving the glasses get the rest of the package so he too could appreciate just who Spiderman is.

“I’m his biggest fan,” Charlie said of Spiderman.

In January, when Milliken and others from Friends of Asaprosar, a charity that brings eye care to the poor of El Salvador, made their most recent trip, the group’s computer system matched Sullivan’s glasses with Jose. Charlie, who did not know if his glasses would be a correct fit for anyone, was overjoyed to hear of the match.

The Friends of Asaprosar is run by Dr. Alan Gruber of Hingham. Since the mid-1980s, the group has been making annual trips to El Salvador, where they help a local health organization, Asaprosar.

Vicky Guzman, a native Salvadorian, started Asaprosar with the help of health promoters nationwide in the 1970s. According to the organization’s Web site, Asaprosar has served more than 90,000 people throughout western El Salvador.

Milliken described the most recent trip, in which the doctors were escorted by armed guards and greeted each day by patients lined out the door, as “intense.”

“I think a lot of us were adrenaline junkies,” he said of the doctors who went with him.

Milliken and the other doctors helped 150 to 200 patients every day. They provided 16,000 eye exams and 138 eye surgeries. The patients showed their gratitude by giving the visiting doctors gifts of local foods, such as mangos and coconuts.

Milliken said the trip showed him how much more needs to be done for the poor of El Salvador.

“In that way, it’s kind of depressing how small a drop in the bucket we can do,” he said.

But in another way, the trip showed him the lengths of generosity of people on the South Shore, and not just the medical professionals who went, but everyone from Ace Surgical, which donated $4,000 worth of equipment, to Charlie Sullivan, who donated his Spiderman glasses.

“Instead of a pen pal, he got a glasses pal,” Milliken said.

Scituate Mariner, February 21^st 2008