BALTIMORE (AP) — Singer Art Garfunkel and two others are offering a $2 million prize to the person or group that does the most to end blindness over the next eight years.

The Baltimore Sun reports the men, who were roommates at Columbia University, established the prize through Johns Hopkins.

The prize will be awarded in December 2020. The time between last week’s announcement of the prize and its awarding is the same period as between President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon and Neil Armstrong’s first steps on its surface.

Besides Garfunkel, the other men putting up $2 million in gold bullion for the prize are Sanford Greenberg, chairman of the Wilmer Eye Institute’s Board of Governors, and Jerry Speyer, a New York-based real estate tycoon.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)