As a member of the San Mateo Lions, you will have the opportunity to serve your community in a variety of charitable causes, many of which are listed below. Whether it be through donations of money and/or time & effort, you'll may find your experience as a San Mateo Lion to be a rewarding way to serve your community. Links open in external windows.
Primary charitable fundraising effort in Lions Clubs International throughout more than 45000 Lions clubs to raise over $150 million US for the SightFirst program. Per the Sightfirst Program website:
Each Fall, some of our San Mateo Lions volunteers will stand near Trader Joes, Mollie Stones, and other key locations in San Mateo and ask people to contribute money to help the blind. In return for a small donation, we give contributers a White Cane pin as a token of our appreciation and a reminder of the help they are providing for the blind. For more info... White Cane Day.
This is our annual district-wide Lions raffle fundraiser to aid qualifying need organizations. Each member is expected to sell 4 books of tickets ($40) during the first quarter of the year. Often, we solicit help from local schools to sell our tickets, from which they get to keep most of the money.
We collect used eyeglasses from community drop off locations for transport to our regional Lions In Sight collection center in Vallejo, California. At the center, the collected eyeglasses are sorted, cleaned, processed and packaged for delivery to developing nations around the world. For more info... Lions In Sight
Per their homepage, they are an innovative biomedical research, treatment and education instituition dedicated to the prevention and cure of cancer and other life-threatening illness. At our Lions Clubs meetings, we have a collection for donations to City of Hope. For more info...City of Hope
Provides services to help meet the essential daily needs of more than 12000 low-income people within San Mateo County such as food, clothing, shelter, health care, worker resources, and counseling services, all free of charge to their clients. For more info...Samaritan House
Provides safe, short-term and mid-term transitional housing and comprehensive, on-side support services for up to 76 homeless single adults at a time. St. Anthony's Kitchen provides hot meals, supplemented by food from Second Harvest Food Bank. Volunteers provide computer tutoring and resume development during evening hours. Over 80% of program graduates are rapidly and permanently re-housed.(Source: Maple Street Shelter web site) San Mateo Lions helps serve meals to hungry guests. For more info...Maple Street Shelter
Each year, the City of San Mateo Senior Center puts on a Senior Health and Wellness Fair, designed for Seniors, their families, and those who provide for their care. This fair usually takes place at the end of September. San Mateo Lions provides volunteer help for their fair, an event that offers free health screenings, demonstrations, and resource info provided by a host of vendors. Past participating vendors have included Mills-Peninsula Health Services, City of San Mateo Dance & Fitness Dept, Stanford Patient Education-Arthritis & Diabetes, Meals on Wheels, among many others. For more info, check last year's flyer on San Mateo City web site. You may also contact the Senior Center at 650-522-7490. Details on 2008 may be available in the Fall Recreation Activity guide accessible on the San Mateo City Web site.
This event was introduced to our club by Lion Marlin Gill, a former Marine and current Junior Vice Commandent for the local detachment of the Marine Corps League. This event celebrates the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. It is a ceremony carried on by active Marines that is quite a treat to watch. The Marines present the cake to the highest ranking Marine in the room, who then allows the oldest Marine in the room to get the first piece. The youngest Marine in the room gets the second piece. After the ceremony, an active duty Marine gives a speech. In 2008, San Mateo Lions plans to help the USMC present the official Cake Cutting Ceremony held previously at the Marine Corps Memorial in SF. For more info... Marine Corps Cake Cutting Ceremony
Lions members go to local schools to present a history of our Flag and their feelings about the Flag.
Usually held in late September, this is a premier event for San Mateo County business professionals. Over 150 different business from merchants to services participated in the 2007 Mega Mixer, held at the San Mateo Event Center. Event sponsors for 2007 included Lifemark Group, Mills-Peninsula Health, Smalltown, ATT, Daily Journal, Comcast and Concar Enterprises, Inc. Event participants can chat with people from a wide variety of companies and organzations, enter free prize drawings, see new merchandise and more. For San Mateo Lions, we use the event to promote San Mateo Lions membership. For more info...2007 Mega Mixer
This is our annual fundraiser where we sell donated items from our members and friends to raise money for our club.