Lions Roar

THE LIONS ROAR REINCARNATED

Edited by Mark Ripplinger

Photos by Don Wood & Mark Ripplinger

March 24, 2008

Lions President Mark Miller

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE (March 24th)

Fellow Lions, start exercising those pancake flipping muscles! We are only a few days away from our Spring Pancake Breakfast. Please spread the word to family and friends so that we can have a good turnout. If you can help out with setup or tear down we would appreciate it. Please be at Peet Jr High about 4:00 p.m. Friday for setup or if you can stay late on Sat. that would be great! Thank You!

We Serve ……… Mark Miller

TODAY’S MEETING (March 24th)

Cedar Valley Hospice will speak to the Club.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

March 31 … TBA

April 7 … No meeting, Interclub at Waterloo

April 14 … TBA

BIRTHDAYS ANNIVERSARIES

None None

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Lions Pancake Breakfast Saturday, March 29^th. Make sure you remember your scheduled work time.

LAST MEETING (March 17th)

Ron Donald, Trustee 9NE Vice President, Lions Foundation, spoke to the Club. Ron was an educator for 33 years prior to his retirement and is currently the Mayor of Van Horne. Ron provided the club with a detailed synopsis of what services the Lions Foundation supports locally and nationwide. Seven main sight and hearing organizations are funded each year. They include:

1. Iowa Hearing Aid Bank located in Marshalltown. In 2007, 258 hearing aides were supplied for people in need.

2. Leader Dog Puppy Program located in Rochester New York. This program supplies leader dogs for free to any blind member who requests them and based on availability of animals. Currently, 19 dogs are being trained. Food and Vet bills are $500 annually per animal.

3. University of Iowa Cochlear Implant Center. The Iowa Cochlear Implant Project was established in 1981 with the availability of single channel cochlear implant systems. Patient reports from that time revealed that these devices provided, at best, sound awareness. In 1983, UI Hospitals and Clinics was the first center in the United States to implant a multi-channel cochlear implant system. These devices quickly demonstrated that patients could achieve good, if not remarkably good, speech recognition abilities.

4. Education for Blind Children, Des Moines. The Lions Foundation supplies 20 IPOD units that are used as educational tools.

5. Iowa School for the Deaf. The Lions Foundation provides $2,000 annually to pay for an ICN program that supports communication with children and their parents who may be in other remote locations across Iowa, away from their children.

6. Iowa Lions Eye Bank. The Eye Bank has been in existence for 50 years. The Lions Foundation provides $90,000 annually, which amounts to 7% of the Eye Banks budget. In 2007, 1,127 eyes were donated with 726 transplanted and the remainder used for research.

7. Iowa KidSight. The Lions Foundation provides $120,000 annually to this program which supports eye screening for young children 6 to 48 months in age. "Iowa KidSight" is a joint project of the Lions Clubs of Iowa and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, dedicated to enhancing early detection and treatment of vision impairments in young Iowa children through screening and public education. Lions Club volunteers throughout Iowa have been trained to organize and conduct free, non-invasive, vision-screening sessions in local communities. The results are interpreted by trained staff in the UI Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and returned to families.

IT'S GREAT TO BE A LION!