We Serve...

The Downtown Youngstown Lions Club was chartered on October 11, 1920, shortly following the organization of Lions International in 1917. Carl Ullman, deceased President of The Dollar Savings and Trust Company, was our first President: George F. Malloy, first Vice-President: E. Wolfe, second Vice-President; John P. Barret, Secretary-Treasurer. There were 59 original members. Meetings were held every Thursday at noon at the Elks Club for one year. Since then, meetings were held at the the YWCA, except for four years at Strauss Department Store, Wick-Pollock. Currently, meetings are held at the Youngstown Club.

Our club is most proud of the fact that we were the first service organization to take up sight saving as a community project, and the project of sight conservation and aid to the blind was first introduced to Lions by our past President and the District Governor, Albert Elton In 1925, at the State Convention at Cedar Point as a project for th Ohio Lions. He was aided by Helen Keller's passionate speech to the Ohio Lions to become "Knights of the Blind". It was adopted, and later that year in Texas, taken on as Lions International as their major project and has spread throughout the world.

To date, or club has raised nearly $800,000, of which 90% was used locally. The club's major fund raiser is its annual Turtle Derby which will be run for the 38th time this coming year. Prior fund raisers including the Mahoning Bridle and Saddle Show (5 years), Sight saving Stamps (4 years), Minstrel Shows, and other benefits including pancake breakfasts and sponsoring the "Major Bowes show". Over $125,000 of that money has gone for eye examinations, glasses, operations, facilities, and equipment for the Society for the Blind (now Goodwill Industries). Items include major equipment for the Low Vision Center, Optacon machines, Visutek Machines, projectors, talking calculators, counting scales, and several vans and trucks to transport the blind.

The close association of this club and the Society for the Blind started with an original donation of $1,000 to help them purchase their first home on Bryson Street. Part of the money was also used to purchase its first piece of equipment, a broom stitcher. The local club, in association with the Lady Lions, "mothered" the braille and sight-saving classes, paying for thousands of pages and hundreds of books which were bound at the Braille Transcribing Service and mailed throughout the world. Several braille typewriters, reading machines, and "talking books" were also purchased for the Braille Transcribing Service.

Every Christmas, at least for the past 67 years, we have given a party for all the blind and visually impaired children and their teachers, including a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and Santa Clause presenting a present to each child. In the early years, we paid for the services of a music appreciation teacher for the sight-saving classes and furnished milk for the braille classes first at Chaney then at Rayen High School.

Additional areas of involvement by this club include eye research, Melvin E. Jones Eye Bank, Pilot Dogs, Blind Welfare, Boys State, T.B. Sanitarium, Salvation Army, YMCA, CARE, and the Youngstown Safety Council. Site Lamps were purchased for the emergency rooms of St. Elizabeth's Hospital and the Youngstown Hospital Association. We have been involved with school children sponsoring them for the Blind Swim Club at the YMCA, as well as purchasing three Visutec Machines for the Youngstown Board of Education to be used by the partially sighted. Over the years, we have assisted on many other civic projects to numerous to mention.

We have also honored our responsibilities in Lions International by sponsoring six (6) additional local clubs: Campbell (1928, now defunct), Southside (1951), Lowellville (1956), New Middletown (1957), Boardman (1968, in conjunction with Southside Lions), and most recently, Canfield Lions Club (1978). We have had at least three (3) Past District Governors, Albert Elton, V.E. Vanvolkenberg and Ed Gilronan, who is also an International Counselor. Our Sr. Deputy Governor was Charles Wolfe, and numerous other Zone Chairmen included Ed Beuchler, Ed Gilronan, Charles Wolfe, Tony Vivo, Allen Scott, and Odelin Kraja. We were there in Bloomfield, Ohio when the Melvin E. Jones Eye Bank was organized by Willard Kerr from the Youngstown Southside Club.

Those that organized this club 84 years ago vowed that "no youngster in Youngstown would go without glasses"; that was only the beginning... we have expanded our involvement. We are justly proud of these first 67 years and we will continue to expand our involvement with unselfish service to our community. WE SERVE.