Port Washington Lions Club - Second Annual Health Fair, March 16

One of the great things that makes your local communities enjoyable is the activity added by your local civics groups. Here in Port Washington, we have several such groups involved - from the Kiwanis to the Jaycees, to the Masons, to several others. About three years ago, I followed one of my close friends and joined the Port Washington Lions Club.

The Lions Club is an international organization that dedicates itself to the idea of service. Our motto is very simple: We Serve. It was originally founded in Chicago by Melvin Jones and a number of members of a business circle in Chicago. The group decided that they wanted to devote themselves to causes outside of their business interests and developed a mission to meet humanitarian and community needs. The new organization spread rapidly. In 1925, Helen Keller addressed the Lions Club International Convention. Keller, a woman renowned for overcoming her own disabilities including blindness and deafness to become a successful author and activist, challenged the Lions to become "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness." The Lions accepted and have been operating programs to fight blindness and its causes, and to ease the difficulties that result from blindness and other disabilities.

The Lions Club operates programs throughout the world including a measles initiative that helped vaccinate 41 million children, a SightFirst program that has raised more than $415 million and made over 8 million cataract surgeries possible, and a program called Sight for Kids that has screened and provided glasses for over 15 million children.

Statewide, the Wisconsin Lions Foundation runs a camp on its own private land that brings in children with cognitive disabilities, diabetic children, and adults or children that are sight or hearing impaired for week long programs that help educate and socialize the attendees and their families with others facing similar disabilities. The WLF also runs child vision screenings, recycles old eye-glasses and hearing aids for the needy, and presents education on diabetes and its management and prevention.

Locally, Lions Clubs like ours get involved by assisting individuals and families working through disabilities. Often we are asked to assist families with wheelchair ramps, transportation, education, or sponsorship for programming for the disability. Last year, the Port Washington Lions donated a substantial amount of time, money, and planning in expanding the fish cleaning station in the marina. The club also made a major investment to help regrade and provide drainage for the little league fields. On a regular basis, the Port Washington Lions Club contributes scholarships, sponsorships to Badger Boys and Badger Girls, runs the annual high school awards banquet (with the help of the Saukville Lions Club), and donates time and money to various other local causes.

The Port Washington Lions Club is a group of approximately 70 members. We range in age from our 20s to our 80s, and include both men and women. We usually meet two times per month, from August to May, and raise money for our causes through participation in community events - cooking and selling food on Fish Day, running our own Lions Fish Derby two weeks later, and selling raffle calendars every fall.

On Saturday, March 16, the Port Washington Lions Club will be running its second annual Health and Wellness Fair as a service project for the community. Through donations from various community sponsors, and a generous major donation from Columbia-St. Mary's, the event will bring together and organize various exhibits and presenters providing information on health-related topics. The Health Fair will run in conjunction with a Red Cross blood drive. Both will take place in the ballroom of Country Inn & Suites, 350 East Seven Hills Road, Port Washington from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.

This year, the Health Fair will feature blood pressure screenings, child vision screenings, information on health care planning, diabetes management and prevention, physical therapy, massage therapy, and more. It is free to the public. We are also seeking blood donors, who can sign up for an appointment online at www.redcrossblood.org, or call 1-800-RED-CROS (733-2767) to schedule a donation time. Walk-up donors are also welcome.

As a Port Washington Lion, I invite any and all who might be interested in Lions or in the Health and Wellness information we have gathered to stop by the Health Fair. We would love to meet you.

What: Port Washington Lions Club Health and Wellness Fair &

Red Cross Blood Drive

When: Saturday, March 16, 2013

Where: Country Inn & Suites

350 E. Seven Hills Road, Port Washington