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History of Lions Clubs International. Melvin Jones 1879 - 1961 He joined a Business Circle, an organization to promote ones own interest.
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History of Lions Clubs International • Melvin Jones 1879 - 1961 • He joined a Business Circle, an organization to promote ones own interest. • However, he thought, why not promote the needs and interests of communities? So, in 1917 he organized a meeting of business individuals in Chicago, Illinois, and formed Lions Clubs International. • 1920 Canada joined.
History of Lions Clubs International • 1925 Helen Keller addressed the Lions International Convention in Cedar Point, Ohio. As a result Lions became “Knights of the Blind in the Crusade Against Darkness”. • 1945 Helped the United Nations develop their NGO section (non governmental organizations). • Currently there are 1.3 million men and women in 45,000 Lions clubs in 205 countries and geographic provinces.
Melvin Jones Fellowship Program • Created in 1973 as the highest form of recognition in the Lions organization, an honor to acknowledge an individual’s dedication to humanitarian service. • Provides 70% of the Lions Club International Foundation’s revenue. • Contributions of $1,000 can be made by Lions clubs, individual club members, or in behalf of individual members by Lions clubs. • Our Anchorage Lions Club has pledged to raise $16,000, in the form of Melvin Jones Fellowships, over five years, starting in 2007.
Lions Club International Foundation • Every dollar donated to LCIF goes toward a grant. • Since 1968, when LCIF began, it has awarded 9,000 grants totaling US$ 640 million. • The LCIF SightFirst program, launched by Lions in 1989, raised $143 million and prevented serious vision loss for 30 million people, and improved eye care services for hundreds of millions. • On average every $6 in donations has resulted in a person with vision restored or saved from blindness.
Lions Club International Foundation • The more than 900 SightFirst grants have: • Provided more than 7.3 million cataract surgeries and prevented serious vision loss for 20 million people. • Supported 114 million treatments for river blindness, • Built or expanded more than 300 eye hospitals/clinics/wards and upgraded more than 337 eye centers with equipment. • Improved eye care in 90 countries around the world. • Trained more than 345,000 ophthalmologists, ophthalmic nurses, other professional eye care workers and village health care workers.
Lions Club International Foundation • Campaign Sight First II was launched by Lions in 2005 with the goal of raising $150 million by the summer of 2008. When the deadline was reached, $200,329,000 had been raised. • The Financial Times has ranked the LCIF the top NGO in the world. • Lions is the only NGO allowed to operate in China. After the recent devastating earthquake, individual Lions clubs took the responsibility for a specific 10 day period of time, followed other clubs for the following 10 days.
Other LCIF grants for: • Schools, camps, and homes for the disabled and disadvantaged youths. • Combating disability, promote health and serve youth. • Building countless homes for those in need, a program in partnership with Habitat for Humanities. • Up to $10,000 for districts affected by a natural disaster that affects at least 100 people, including tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and typhoons. LCIF typically awards over $2 million in emergency grant funding each year for immediate disaster relief.