A member of the Hopkinton Lions puts the finishing touches on the club’s float for the town’s 300th anniversary parade in 2015.
The Hopkinton Lions Club is looking for some good men and women to spend just a few hours each month helping the community and international causes such as eye research and disaster relief.
“We invite anyone interested in joining a small active group of folks whose goal is to support the Hopkinton community to talk to us,” said Mike Tarsi, the club’s president.
Founded in 1975, the Hopkinton Lions have been living up to the club motto, “We serve,” for almost 50 years. “We try to be involved in some type of local activity each month,” said Tarsi. The list of activities involves almost every age group and aspect of Hopkinton life. Recent activities included sponsoring an annual speech contest for high school students complete with a $100 prize for the winner, holding a Santa Day for special needs children, creating and sending Valentine’s cards to hospitalized veterans, working with the Friends of Hopkinton to host a fun day for youngsters at the Family Fling and offering residents a chance to clear out attics and cellars at the organization’s annual town-wide yard sale.
“A good example of what we do is the Repair Cafe we held in April with the Hopkinton Senior Center,” said Tarsi. He noted a friend gave him the idea and contacted the Senior Center to see if it would be interested in working with the club. The Lions coordinated the 17 volunteers, both members and other residents, who showed up with toolboxes for the event. The Senior Center provided the site and the publicity.
“We had over 84 items brought in for repair,” said Tarsi, “and we fixed about 70 of those items.” In addition, dozens of knives, scissors and yard tools were sharpened.
“We are always looking for new things to do, and this event, the second that we held, turned out very, very well,” added Tarsi. “Everyone was happy with the results.”
Besides supporting the community and local charities, the Hopkinton Lions Club also is part of Lions International, the world’s largest service club organization, with close to 1.4 million members in almost every country of the world. Founded in 1917, Lions International works to fight blindness and provide vision care by supporting research and screenings, equipping hospitals and clinics and raising awareness about eye disease. Lions International also offers volunteers and funds for disaster relief, provides funding to help combat diabetes and dementia, and supports other causes.
“Our members really do a lot without investing a lot of their time,” said Tarsi. He estimated the current membership of a dozen members spends about three to four hours a month doing club activities, including the hour or so monthly meeting. “Considering all we do, it is not a big time sink for our members,” he said. “If we had more members we could do even more.” Ideally, he hopes club membership would double.
Joining the club is fairly straightforward. “We ask any interested adult man or woman to contact us. We will talk to them and invite them to a meeting. If they want to join, we assign each one to a current member, who will help them learn more about the club through online and printed materials,” said Tarsi.
“We hope others will get to know and join this small but very active group of people so we can do more for the Hopkinton community,” added Tarsi.
Anyone interested in more information about the Hopkinton Lions should visit HopkintonLions.org or email HopkintonLions@gmail.com.
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