Whether you’re reading this editorial on a printed page or online, you’re using your eyes. You used them to work out where you were the moment you woke up this morning and turning out a bedside lamp is one of the last things we do at night.

When you hear about people who have gone blind as the result of an accident, they talk about how hard it is to adjust to their new world: No driving means an immediate restriction on freedom, no reading means adapting the way you interact with the world.

How would you react if you were handed not a death-sentence but a sight-sentence? If a doctor told you that the things you saw today would be the last things you would ever see?

In a way, this is what happened to Kate Morell. When she was just 15 years old, a doctor told her she would blind by the time she was 40. Knowing what her daughter was facing, her mother put her on a plane and told her to go see the world while she could.

Thirty years later, Kate can still see, but it won’t last forever. However, she refuses to be beaten by the incurable condition that will one day rob her of her sight.

When asked by her husband what she would miss most about seeing, Kate said “sunsets”. Having been limited by the dark while she travelled the world, many of her most treasured memories involved the pink and purple hues of evening.

And so began a simple plan: Set up a Facebook page and ask people to send in photos of sunsets. If I’m going to be blind, Kate figured, then I need to see as many as I can before that happens.

At the time of writing, more than 2000 photos of sunsets had been sent Kate’s way, but we’re sure far more will follow. We want the community to bombard Kate with photos and words of encouragement. We want social media to go into meltdown so we can give this kind mother the tens of thousands of sunsets she will never get to see.

Take a moment to consider what you would miss most if you were to go blind, then go and see it. Our eyesight is a precious gift, don’t waste it on reality TV.

Go to facebook.com/SunsetsforKate or visit http://www.sunsetsforkate.com to see some of the amazing pictures already submitted and share your own with the #sunsetsforkate hashtag.