Creating Harmony Through Service

     As I write this on May 5, we Lions and our communities are still sequestered in our homes, hoping to not just flatten the curve of the COVID-19 case numbers but to lower them.  Good news appears on the horizon, if we all can stay safe and healthy.

     Our MD 36 Lions have not let this closure of our clubs mean closure of our fellowship and service, however!  Zoom and Google Hangout and Go To Meeting platforms have proven to be a very interesting way to connect with each other at club and District levels.  Our MD 36 election is happening on another excellent platform, “election.runner.com”, due to the cancellation of the MD 36 Convention. Lions all around the MD are now wondering if these methods of communication may change the landscape of how we meet and carry out business without the time and expense of travel.  Personally, I see the future as being a mix of both electronic and face-to-face communication.  Remember our November program and articles about Cyber Clubs?  Well, it appears that circumstances opened those possibilities for us – just not in the way that we hoped.

     Further on in this issue you’ll read about service projects that MD 36 clubs have undertaken in many creative ways during the last eight weeks. The Lake Oswego Lions, District O, have a team of mask makers: 1,200+ masks and kits produced today, with a large percentage going to TriMet for use by bus and other drivers and staff.  Lion Gretchen Olson has been the light bulb behind this bright idea and gathered the team to work with her.  As I write this, she is at the TriMet regional HQ conducting a class for those staff who want to learn the proper method of creating the masks – the service continues!

     Many Lions have become the wheels for folks not able to do safe food shopping, or needing to attend to medical needs.  Kudos to everyone who has stepped up to deliver food and necessities!  I also know of Lions who have ordered toilet paper, disposable diapers, and cleaning products form Amazon and then delivered these most needed items to their local food pantries (Dale and I have been doing this – even though the wait for TP has been up to 6 weeks!).

     I want to share two wonderful pieces of encouragement with you.  The first is by Amelia Earhart, with thanks to Robin Stoeckler of the Beaverton Lions who shared it: “A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the shoots spring up and make new trees”.

     Let’s make our continuing service to our communities be the roots and the new shoots springing up become the new Lions that we bring in to join us as we serve.

     The second piece is by the much beloved Fred Rogers:  “At many times throughout their lives, children will feel the world has turned topsy-turvy.  It’s not the ever-present smile that will help them feel secure.  It’s knowing that love can hold many feelings, including sadness, and that they can count on the people they love to be with them until the world turns right side up again”.

     Lions, let’s be the people that others can count on for help in this topsy-turvy world.  WE CAN SERVE our communities in so many creative ways!

Council Chair Sharon        

Creating Harmony Through Service

As I write this on April 7, our world is still upside down in the grasp of the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking beyond the human tragedies, what a horrific effect this virus has had on our Lions club service activities and the fundraisers to support those community-helping projects. Many of our clubs have taken on projects still possible in the time of social distancing, including the creation of masks for those not directly working in health care but in need of safety and helping out at food banks to safely deliver needed nutrition to community members.

Although two of our district conventions have been cancelled and, at this writing, the decision regarding the MD 36 Convention has not yet been made, Lions business is continuing as planned. Club elections have been held using one of several e-communication platforms. Many clubs are holding meetings over Zoom or other group communication methods, doing their best to stay in touch with each other. We Lions are a creative group and we’re finding ways to be connected!

At this time, it does appear that the “Ah Ha Moment” stories will be collected and judged in a different way than previously planned. Perhaps DG Bob Chaney will find a way to assemble the book of stories into which he has put so very much planning time or perhaps the project will continue through the next Lions year. In either case, I want to share my story with you here, because we all need to read something to lift our hearts just a bit!

“Have you ever seen a vision impaired little guy just light up with excitement? I had the pleasure of watching Cody, a third grader living with albinism, do just that. Along with some of the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing staff, I was privileged to watch Dr. J. P. Lowery, the OLSHF Low Vision specialist, as he worked with kids in his traveling clinic, in this case an unoccupied classroom. Cody could not see the white board at the front of the classroom, even with his eyeglass correction. Dr. Lowery fitted his need by providing Cody with a monocular scope, an instrument much like one half of a pair of binoculars. It was just amazing and incredibly heartwarming, to see the 8 year old’s response when he put the monocular up to his best eye. He even got up and went to the back of the classroom to test his vision with the new instrument’s help, excitedly laughing and telling us that now he could sit anywhere he wanted in the classroom! And, just so happy, he told Dr. Lowery and we Lions, that this was so cool and that he’d be the only kid with a space age scope! That was the day when I became a Lion in my heart.”

We’re Lions and WE CONTINUE TO SERVE – AS BEST AS WE CAN!

Council Chair Sharon

Creating Harmony Through Service

“April 2020 Issue”

Disaster and disease – what a time that we’re having as I write this! Our Pendleton Lions Club is hard at work helping to restore some of the tremendous loss suffered by members of their community during the flooding of the Umatilla River. What a totally unexpected event – as are all natural disasters – and took the city of Pendleton completely by surprise both with its rapid development and the amount of devastation. The MD 36 ALERT team continues to work with Pendleton and District G Lions – particularly District Governor-Elect John Taylor and District Governor Gary Mose – as the damage is assessed and the cleanup process begins. Watch for communication from the ALERT team for possible ways that we Lions across the state can help in this work.

As we all read the reports of the COVID 19 (coronavirus) and wonder if we are all going to be in the path of this disease, it’s important to remember that we as Lions are here to help each other as well as our communities. Should a member of your club, a close family member or a friend be exposed to the virus, put into isolation or, more sadly, become ill, there will be ways to help. Work with your club to assess ways that Lions can provide assistance (while still remaining safe from contagion). We are all waiting for the much warmer weather to come, given that viral experts are telling us that the virus won’t like heat and will slowly disappear – hopefully!

Lions Clubs International Foundation is offering immediate $10,000 grants to the districts in Tennessee that were horribly affected by the powerful tornadoes on March 2-3. International Director BJ Blankenship and his wife Lion Carolyn, who live close to the areas affected and who just visited with District O at the convention, are keeping many of us in the loop as disaster recovery begins in those areas. While we are some distance away from that tragedy, we can certainly help by making a donation to the LCIF disaster fund, indicating that you wish your donation to go to the relief project in Tennessee.

Remember that by donating $1,000 to LCIF in the manner of purchasing a Melvin Jones or Progressive Melvin Jones Award, your clubs will be assisting in all of the services that LCIF provides. PID Robert Littlefield is looking forward to presenting many MJ or PMJ Awards at the MD 36 convention on Saturday, May 16 in Canyonville. If your club’s chosen awardee will not be attending the MD 36 convention, recognition will still be given! If award(s) are mailed to your club secretary and the awardee will be present, please be sure to have the materials brought to the convention with whoever is representing your club.

How are you doing with putting your “Ah-Ha” moment, the time when you became a Lion in your heart, into a story for our MD 36 book? Our district governors have reported to me that very few stories have been submitted. Please, put your creativity to work and describe your heartfelt moment, so that it can be included in the contest at the MD 36 convention and in the book to be created as a fundraiser for our Pediatric Cancer service focus.

We’re Lions and WE SERVE – locally and worldwide!

Council Chair Sharon

MARCH 2020 ISSUE

Creating Harmony Through Service

     This week, I had fun taking a walk down memory lane with a friend. Many of you are of an age to remember a fun kids’ magazine called “Highlights” and that was what was shared. “Highlights” came once a month, and it was so much fun to read the articles and stories and do the puzzles – but the best was a cartoon called “Goofus and Gallant”. Goofus was a boy who just couldn’t get things right, whether by intent or accident; Gallant was, as the name implies, an always good kid who made the right choices.

     Using the “Goofus and Gallant” idea, let’s think about our Lions clubs for a minute. If a club decides to ignore the fresh idea for a service project or fundraiser brought to it by a new member of a club, using the old adage “We’ve always done it our way”, that’s being Goofus. Inviting that new member to develop the fresh idea and involve those who are interested, Lions members yet or not, is being Gallant.

     Deciding that attracting new members to the club would change things just too much, so keeping the club in its staid and shrinking state, that’s being Goofus. Reaching out to the community through a needs assessment survey, finding a new and needed community project and asking folks to join together in that project while having fun together doing it, that’s being Gallant.  And how about exploring new methods of membership, such as a Cyber branch or whole new Cyber club? Even more like Gallant!

     Declining to offer a service requested by a community member, such as an eye exam and glasses or a hearing exam and hearing aid(s), because that person speaks a language that no one in your club understands, that’s being Goofus! Reaching out to a community contact with translation skills (such as OLSHF), and thus being able to help that community member with needs, that is really being like Gallant.

     As Lions, we’re living in communities that are ever more diverse – and all of our neighbors deserve the same attention and care when the need arises. I love to read the articles in the Oregon Lion submitted by clubs who want to share their outreach into their extended communities. Keep up the excellent work, Lions of MD 36!

We’re Lions and WE SERVE!

Council Chair Sharon