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08/09/2022 02:00 PMClub motto’s don’t get much more straight forward than that of the Lion’s Club: We serve. For members of the Madison Lions Club that means everything from eye glass donations to supporting the food bank to gifting scholarships and hosting community events. According to Club President Marinus de Jongh, however, membership in the organization has dropped.
“COVID definitely hampered us. The pandemic really put a damper on our activities like many organizations,” de Jongh said. “We were basically shut down for events for the last two years. But membership has been an issue for some time. Membership is getting older and we definitely need some new blood.”
The Club also recently lost two members to death and another to health issues. According to de Jongh, the need for new members is vital.
“We still have a very active Club, but it certainly is getting harder and harder to enlist members,” said de Jongh. “We really want to rejuvenate our membership, because we are still a very active Club. We sent 4,000 pairs of eyeglasses to Zambia recently. We still do eye screenings. We just did eye screenings at a local school. We have also helped purchase new equipment and computerized equipment for eye screenings. We still support the food bank, so we are still very active and have a number of upcoming events.”
Reasons for membership loss are complicated, de Jongh said, but the trend is nationwide and includes most civic groups.
“The pandemic affected membership, but it seems to be a general phenomenon across all service organizations. The younger generation, they certainly aren’t afraid of work, and seem to be concerned about many of the issues that service organizations are part of, but I think they may be scared of a commitment. But we need the younger generation is need it right now,” said de Jongh.
The Lions formed in 1917 with a focus on community welfare, vision problems, and assisting those in need to receive vision testing and eyeglasses. They have since expanded their commitment from that original goal that now includes a wide variety of causes and issues.
“Our basic premise is service to the community. We help out locally and around the globe, but it is all about service. We are a team,” said de Jongh. “We also have a number of incredible and interesting speakers who come to our meetings; doctors, politicians, trade people. We have great discussions. We had a group of people about a year ago discussing race related issues, so we have discussions about a wide range of topics, that the younger folks would not only find interesting, but could really add to.”
According to de Jongh, in the last 20 years, the Madison Lions have donated more than $80,000 to the local Food Pantry, conduct eye screenings at all Madison public schools, in the last 50 years they have gifted more than $280,000 to area high school scholarship programs, and more than 40,000 pairs of eye glasses to South America and Africa.
“If you want to serve the community. The need is there,” said de Jongh. “There is more demand than we can fill. The demand is there and we need members to help us with this work. If you want to help your community, the Lions are a great way to provide that.”
For more information about becoming a member of the Madison Lion Club, call Membership Chair Sharon Callahan at 860-552-9341 or Secretary Barry Miller at 203-421-3326. The Club typically meets on the thirrd Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Maritime Grille in Guilford. For information about upcoming Lions events, visit their Facebook page facebook.com/madisonctlions