A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
The Carlton Area Lions Club has been serving the Carlton County area for 50 years strong, growing and serving. It is one of 49,000 Lions clubs around the world, and its members reside in all corners of Carlton County. They give their time and energy to create a positive impact here and around the globe.
The club is over 25 members strong. Members spend much of their time raising funds to help support several causes. Fundraisers include their monthly Burger Night at the Carlton VFW, raffles, plant sales and more. Their next Burger Night is scheduled for 5-7 p.m. Friday, April 19. A portion of the upcoming burger night proceeds will help a local citizen offset medical expenses.
Some of the projects they support with monies raised are purchasing eyeglasses for the less fortunate, Can-Do-Canines, the MD Hearing Foundation, providing scholarships, Lions Club International Foundation, Minnesota Lions Vision Foundation, Sprint Point Diabetes Project, Leader Dogs for the Blind and various other projects.
The Lions motto is “We Serve.” Among the various projects the club support they also serve their community by doing highway clean-up, volunteering at Carlton Daze, National Night Out and other events, offering free vision screening to area youth, planting trees, hosting senior Bingos throughout the year and hosting various events such as the International Peace Poster Contest for youth ages 11-13.
Among the club’s most recent projects is recycling plastic to create benches that are distributed throughout the county. Working with Trex the club has collected enough plastic to create 10 benches to date.
The Lions Club is known for its charity work with impaired vision. They provide vision screenings for grade-schoolers and collect eyeglasses to send to people in need in other countries. A new project using the discarded eyeglasses cases and making them into care kits filled with items such as toothpaste, shampoo, lotion and body washes and donate them to CHUM or local schools.
The club is also accepting financial donations for solar lights that will be sent to people in Ukraine. The $125 units provide light, and can be used to charge cell phones. Call Lion Larry Penk at 218-310-6520 to contribute. The club has raised enough funds to purchase 25 kits thus far. In the coming weeks they will purchase the kits and the club will assemble them before sending them to Ukraine.
The Carlton Area Lions Club is always seeking new members! Club meetings are on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 6 pm at the Carlton VFW. Meetings include dinner, presenters and fellowship. If you are interested in attending a meeting to learn more about us please contact Lion Club member Joel Soukkala at 218-451-0715 or email [email protected].
Lions Clubs International
Lions Clubs International is the largest service club organization in the world. More than 1.4 million members in over 49,000 clubs are serving in 200 countries and geographic areas around the globe. Since 1917, Lions have strengthened local communities through hands-on service and humanitarian projects, and we extend our service impact through the generous support of our Lions Clubs International Foundation. We are focused on supporting vision, the environment, childhood cancer, hunger, diabetes, and other pressing humanitarian needs to help address some of the biggest challenges facing humanity. For more information about Lions Clubs International, visit lionsclubs.org.
