Blue Moon Optical owner Patrick Duffy is offering discounted lenses and free frames and contacts at his store at 121 W. San Antonio St., San Marcos.[/caption]

Patrick Duffy knows what it’s like to lose everything to a flood, so he knew he needed to find a way to give back after the October floods. Duffy is providing victims of the Oct. 30-31 floods with heavily discounted lenses and free frames and contacts from his downtown San Marcos business, Blue Moon Optical.

Duffy was forced to evacuate his home during the Memorial Day weekend flood, and he said providing discounted glasses to the community helps him justify the help he received from the community after he and his son were flooded out of their home and lost their car in May.

“I needed help with just about everything [after the Memorial Day weekend flood], and if you have one less expense going through something like that it takes something off [flood victims’] shoulders.”

Duffy said if flood victims can provide proof of flood damage he will provide frames for free and lenses at cost, without any markup. After the Memorial Day weekend flood Blue Moon helped about 80 victims replace their glasses.

Helping people is why Duffy is still in the optometry industry, he said.

He was considering a career change a few years ago, but had the opportunity to provide glasses for a baby girl born with cataracts. The opportunity convinced him to stick with the job.

“I essentially gave her the first time she saw her parents,” Duffy said. “It changed how I thought about this industry. It became more than just bending a piece of plastic.”

For all the loss Duffy has incurred—his apartment, his car, all of his clothes—he said he is thankful he did not lose more.

When he returned to his old apartment on Old Martindale Road in the days following the Memorial Day weekend flood he went to his son’s room and saw the water line was almost a foot and a half above his son’s bed.

“A lot of people lost a whole lot more,” Duffy said. “Stuff is just stuff.”