Help Guilford Lions Come Roaring Back
Once 55 members strong, Guilford Lions Club has dwindled to just six members who are fighting to help the club come roaring back to life. Right now, the club is putting on a push to grow its roster to at least 21 members, men and women, so it can keep its charter and avoid extinction here.
Twenty-one—that’s very close to the number of Lions involved in this important community service club when acting secretary Bill Passas joined up in 2000. Bill, newly retired, had just moved to Guilford from Piermont, New York, with his wife, Priscilla.
“Our real estate agent’s husband was in the Lions,” recalls Bill, who had first heard of Lions International when he was a young executive and a member of the Jaycees in New York.
Bill decided his retirement would be a great time to join up and get involved in his new community.
Officially founded as The Lions Club International chapter of the Guilford Lions in September 1950, “The Guilford Lions had about 21 in the membership 15 years ago, when I joined, after having peaked out at 55 in the 1970s and gradually declining, as many organizations have,” says Bill.
“We had a precipitous decline three years ago, when we had 21 members officially, but only about 10 doing anything. What was basically happening is most of the members were getting older and they weren’t bringing in new members, so we weren’t getting younger, fresher members coming in to help with projects.”
The Guilford Lions was once the umbrella organization to the Guilford Lionesses, which dwindled to a handful of members before it disbanded three years ago and merged with the Lions. When the international organization opened Lions Club membership to women a few years back, several local Lions Clubs, including those in Branford, Madison, and East Haven, flourished with a growing number of female members. Guilford Lions Club is hoping to attract female members to its roster, as well.
“Branford has about 30 ladies, Madison also has quite a few ladies, and East Haven is almost all ladies,” says Bill. “The ladies bring in more new members than the men! Two years ago, we had three ladies, but two moved away and one dropped out because she had a crisis in the family.”
Another potential membership pool exists among local groups that may be looking to stretch outside of the local range.
“To some degree, we’d like to identify some organizations in town which may be local but may not be affiliated with a national or international organization, and maybe they would like to merge into the Lions and take on a more global association,” says Bill.
Bill says statewide, Connecticut has lost about 50 members in its combined Lions Clubs in the past year, but adds, “It’s not unique to the Lions—the Kiwanis, even the town, has problems getting volunteers for their committees. So there’s something happening. I guess people are getting more busy.”
Unfortunately, when community members fail to get involved in groups like Guilford Lions, causes that have come to rely on the club’s support lose much-needed assistance.
In 2014, even with its dwindling membership, Guilford Lions contributed $6,800 to causes locally, statewide, and globally. The club donated $4,150 to local community causes, $1,550 to assist Lions’s causes in Connecticut, and $1,100 assisting national and international programs.
Locally, last year’s donated dollars helped assist a Guilford High School student receive a $1,000 club scholarship (new in 2014) and gave Guilford Lions the flexibility to give $1,000 to help Guilford Fire Department buy a new rescue boat, while the club also continued its annual support of Meals on Wheels, Guilford Food Bank, Guilford Fuel Fund, VNA (Parkinson’s Support), Guilford Youth & Family Services, the American Cancer Walk, and others. Outside of Guilford, the Lions Club money also supported children and adults with vision needs, seniors who don’t have enough to eat, those in need of hearing and speech assistance, and several other causes.
One of the causes Lions International has long supported is vision. Guilford Lions assist with eyeglass collection boxes around town and by monetarily supporting groups including Fidelco, the Freedom Guide Dog Foundation, Connecticut Lions Eye Research Foundation at Yale (founded in 1955), screening programs, and low vision centers.
“Right now there are three locations in town where we collect donated eyeglasses, and those eyeglasses are sent to a center in New Jersey where they’re measured and put into kits,” explains Bill. “The kits go overseas, and many doctors will donate their time and put together glasses for kids all over the world. Also many doctors, through the Lions, will go overseas and do cornea transplants. They do about 70,000 to 80,000 a year because of Lions clubs.”
The Lions Club International Foundation stands at the ready to lend support to communities during disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, he adds.
“They will go in with contributions in order to help those situations, so money is set aside for that,” says Bill.
Even with notable declines in clubs like Guilford’s, Lions International remains the largest service club organization in the world, with 1.35 million members in more than 46,000 clubs. Members can participate in excellent opportunities such as the Lions Connecticut District’s annual convention, held over several days, and the annual international conference, set in different locations worldwide.
At home, every Lions Club takes on the responsibility of fundraising to support local causes as well as those identified by the state district and the international group. The Guilford Lions have relied on fundraising through revenues from sales of hot dogs, hamburgers, and other items coming off the grill in the Guilford Lions’s highly recognizable event trailer. Manned by volunteers, the Lions’s trailer has been a fixture at many Guilford community events.
In recent years, fundraising efforts involved setting up the trailer at the Connecticut Corvette Club all-day gathering at Moroso Performance Products and the annual Guilford Rotary LobsterFest at Bishop’s Orchards (where the trailer served “kiddie meals” of hamburgers, hot dogs, potato pancakes, and macaroni and cheese). But a lack of manpower has become a problem.
“We’re not going to be able to do either one of those this year,” says Bill. “The third big event for us was the Lions Craft Fair on the Green in August, and we’re not able to do that this year.”
With some money in the treasury to help support community causes for a bit longer, the club is focusing on raising membership so that it can get back out into the community and continue its good works for many years to come. The club has set a goal of having a reorganizational meeting in May or June at which at least 21 members, most of them new, will help swell the ranks.
When at its normal roster size, Guilford Lions Club meets at the Maritime Grille in Guilford for a monthly board meeting and also gathers twice a month for social dinner gatherings. The current officer group includes President/Treasurer Art Arey, Membership Chairman Ed Montague, and Bill, who is stepping in as acting secretary (due to a broken hip suffered by the current secretary).
“If we can get a group of people interested in joining, we hope to have our reorganization meeting in May or June, so hopefully we will be able get some people into most of the positions,” says Bill. “Normally, we have a president, a vice president, and sometimes a second vice president, and five board members as well as our other positions. We need to get that reorganized.”
To receive a membership invitation to join Guilford Lions Club, call 203-453-1015 or 203-738-9811 or email passasw@msn.com. Local organizations considering joining the Guilford Lions Club and becoming associated with the local and international efforts can contact President Art Aery at 203-453-9783. To learn more about Lions International, visit www.lionsclubs.org.