When you wish upon a star…

March 5, 2025 Drew Jones

 

Maddy Scavone, the Australian orthoptist behind Speckles’ Hide&See Eye Patches for children with amblyopia, tells Drew Jones about the business going global and how her dream of a Disney collaboration came true

 

 

Speckles founder and CEO (chief eye officer) Maddy Scavone has teamed up with The Walt Disney Company ANZ ahead of the June release of its animated movie Elio.

 

Speckles is celebrating the movie’s eye-patch-wearing eponymous hero with a new line of Disney-branded Hide&See amblyopia patches.

 

 

 

 

Scavone says she approached Disney because she saw they were launching a movie where the main character wears an eye patch and she wanted to see if they could collaborate and “use the movie as an awareness piece for patching and the importance of eye checks in kids”.

 

The day after emailing Disney, Scavone received a reply from the head of the Licensing Business Unit for Walt Disney ANZ, who expressed a personal connection to her message. “They totally understood what I'm trying to do at Speckles and were all for it. It evolved from a Disney Princess range to adding Marvel characters, Moana and a Christmas range,” Scavone says.

 

In June last year, the collaboration was officially launched with an eye-screening day at Optometrist Warehouse’s superstore in Campbelltown, New South Wales. “We had the student orthoptists from University of Technology Sydney come and help us give free checks to 40 children. We put the Disney Princess and Marvel eye patches on the kids as they had their eyes tested and we made it really fun with balloon art and face painting. It was about raising awareness of how important kids’ eye checks are.”

 

 

A Disney princess launch at Optometrist Warehouse

 

 

Half of the parents the Speckles team talked to had never had their child's eyes checked – even though 80% of those parents wore glasses themselves – and 80% had never heard of amblyopia. “We actually picked up two kids with severe vision issues, who we referred to Optometrist Warehouse,” says Scavone.

 

 

Kids’s eye screening at the Disney and Speckles launch event

 

 

This year, the team is hoping to do another big campaign around Elio’s 19 June launch to make sure all kids under the age of eight have had their eyes tested, she says. “I think Disney is really good at that storytelling aspect, where they have an underdog and raise them up. The Elio character is an underdog who ends up being the representative of Earth and on that journey he discovers who he is really meant to be. So I think this movie will help with more acceptance for kids to understand why other children might wear an eye patch and maybe boost the confidence of those who do,” she says.

 

Global goals

 

Even prior to the Disney collaboration, Speckles had been making headway in the Americas. Scavone’s annual trips to the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus conference have generated interest in the US and, more recently, Mexico, she says. “We're working on bringing our products there this year, which they haven't had access to before.”

 

 

Speckles' Maddy Scavone

 

Also in 2024, Speckles lent its support to charity partner Sightsavers on its Liberia ship project, which implemented vision screening services in the West African country. The UK-based NGO trained people in the communities to test school kids’ vision, providing resources, equipment and deworming medication. “Sightsavers’ whole mission is to prevent avoidable blindness and to help people with disabilities gain access to employment. We’ve been supporting them from pretty much the get-go. It's always been our mission to do that and now we're looking at doing the same things in Nigeria – supported by every Speckles purchase,” says Scavone.

 

Providing families with easy-to-understand information on children’s eye health all in one place is also part of Scavone’s plan. “We want to connect more with eye clinics and have them share their stories and interesting case studies about their patients to spread further awareness on eye conditions in children. With the gap between seeing the specialist at the clinic and then not having any support, we want to use our educational resources through our social media and YouTube videos to make it easier for parents to learn about the importance of kids’ eye health.”

 

Sunglasses gain traction

 

One aspect of that is sun safety, with Speckles’ sunglasses range gaining traction. “We've seen more Australian and New Zealand parents buying their kids sunglasses now, which is great. Eventually we’ll have a range of prescription eyewear too, which will be a really nice addition to everything we've been working on.”

 

Despite this burgeoning workload, Scavone says the Speckles team has remained small but resourceful. “Obviously I’m not in clinic anymore, but I feel Speckles is having a greater impact than I could have made in a clinic alone,” she says. “When you're aligned and on the right path, things just happen and you meet the right people at the right time. It’s really felt that way the last few years, especially with the Disney partnership. I actually wrote that down as an ambition when I first started Speckles: ‘partnership with Disney’!”