After volunteering with communities throughout Chula Vista and San Diego for five years, Niki Mani decided to establish her own non-profit organization assisting underserved diabetic patients in the Chula Vista and San Diego communities. Niki was inspired to begin project “Stop Diabetic Blindness” after shadowing doctors in a sliding scale retina eye clinic. The interactions she had with the patients and doctors convinced her that what the community needed the most was free regular eye treatment as preventative care to diabetic blindness. The main impetus driving the project’s development was her commitment to reducing the number of patients who would ever sit alone on an examination table accepting imminent blindness due to lack of access to preventative care.Niki worked tirelessly for two years to create this successful public health program providing examinations and medical treatments to diabetic patients experiencing the risk of vision loss.Niki is a 2015 graduating senior at La Jolla Country Day School where she has attended her entire life. Niki is passionate about playing tennis and perfecting her Spanish but, most importantly, creating and driving public service projects