Blacksburg optometrists Dr. Steve Jacobs, left, and Dr. Jennifer Steckenrider have created videos that invite children and adults to join in contests and activities for fun and learning during these days of shuttered schools and businesses.
By Pat Brown
Contributing Writer
Dr. Steve Jacobs, a Blacksburg optometrist, has come up with some activities to entertain local kids and help boost area businesses.
On his office Facebook page, he has posted an invitation for children seventeen and under to make and star in their own one-minute videos. He promises gift cards from local businesses to the winners.
One early entrant videoed kids biking their way through an obstacle course made of family boots. Another film featured kids having races on crutches.
The first two entrants are assured gift-card prizes, Dr. Jacobs said over the weekend.
To introduce the contest, Dr. Jacobs and fellow optometrist, Dr. Jennifer Steckenrider, who also practices optometry at the North Main office, developed their own brief video with a humorous invitation to spur kids’ creativity. By Sunday, April 5, their message had gone out to 3,900 people and 492 had watched the contest invitation. Eight kids had created videos for the two optometrists to judge.
Before the dust settled on that idea, Dr. Jacobs came up with another contest for folks who are dealing with out-of-control hair. Only those who submit their pictures once a month will get to vote on the final winner. Gift cards at local hairdressers will be the prizes.
Hairdressers can’t remain open during social distancing, so Jacobs said purchasing gift cards for contest winners will help them.
He predicted the crazy hair competition will continue through July. Jacobs himself sports an unobtrusive ponytail and said he plans a “name the ponytail” competition in the future.
“We have some time on our hands, even after washing for 20 seconds,” Jacobs said with a smile. “In times like these, we have to do what we can” for entertainment.
Jacobs has some experience in community service and lists current civic club memberships on his office Facebook page. “This is such a great community; I like to help out,” he said.
A visit to his office reveals that Jacobs is an enthusiastic photographer. His work with photography dates to his childhood and has continued into the digital photography era.
“With digital photography you can take so many pictures that you can re-create where you were and what you were feeling,” he said.
“But I am not artistic with videos yet,” he said. He relies on jokes and poems to spruce up his contest invitations.
Dr. Steckenrider has created an instructive video about color vision. It includes information about prisms and even tells viewers how to create their own prisms.
“The idea is to have fun,” Dr. Jacobs said.
