ORPHANS and the destitute in Romania will this month receive state-of-the-art eye testing equipment in memory of a 20-year-old Stourport girl tragically killed in a road accident.

Family and friends of Sarah Hampton of Titton said they would go ahead with shipping £13,000 worth of equipment although they are only half way towards raising the funds needed.

Sarah's father Mike Hampton who runs a family optician's practice in Bromsgrove where his daughter worked said there was still enormous support for the Sarah Hampton Foundation set up after she died in May and he was trusting it would continue.

Mr Hampton said an 18th birthday party for a friend at the weekend alone raised £300 for the fund.

He was this month making a second visit to the Caminul Felix orphanage centre with which the foundation was linked to install equipment and continue with eye tests started during the first visit in August.

He wanted to show practical work had started on problems that needed attention now and not sometime in the future.

Support was also continuing from opticians in the West Midlands and elsewhere who had contributed spectacle frames and made other contributions.

He said: "We have bought the auto-refractor and will be setting up this and other equipment at a permanent clinic.

"Our idea is to make the latest facilities available for visiting optometrists who may come to help from any part of the world."

The foundation has already achieved 200 eye tests but members also returned from Romania with harrowing tales about the condition of children abandoned in state institutions there.

Mr Hampton said he had also purchased a £450 "multi-gym" to help with the physical rehabilitation of children who spent their lives caged in cots and were losing the use of their limbs.

Sarah's mother Barbara said: "Sarah would have cared a great deal about this.

"If Kidderminster and Bromsgrove people pull together, the foundation can make an impact she would have been proud of."

Cash donations should be made to the Sarah Hampton Foundation (account number 41577360) at HSBC, High Street Bromsgrove or sent to Hamptons The Opticians, 11 Crown Close Bromsgrove.

Gift boxes are also invited. Please ring 01527 577350 for details.