The Cincinnati Kenwood Lions Club was chartered in 1975. The Lions members were mostly residents or worked in the Madeira, Kenwood area of northeast Hamilton county. The club was sponsored by the Downtown Host Club. With their guidance the new club was successfully launched.
Twenty-eight years later our goal of helping people remain the same. The first president was the late Bill Mefford, an outstanding and resourceful leader. He stressed funding projects helping local emergency squads with special equipment. Fairfax, Madeira, Indian Hill and Bethesda North were among the recipients.
The club also donated and continues to help state and international groups, including pilot dog training and eye research. Other projects were providing eye glasses, helping with hearing tests and contributing to blood collection drives. Clothing and gifts were provided to neady children at Christmas.
The funds were raised by sponsoring golf outings, flower, mint and enteretainment book sales. Charity can distribution and yard sales provided additional monies. Recently "candy day" sales have been an important source of funds
Several mebers have been active in district and state offceres, Lion Ed Ross, Jack Patel, Gary Diekmeyer and Clark Van Scyoc. Past District Gov. Van Scyoc was an advisor to Kenwood Club in early years, while belonging to the active Anderson club . PDG Van Scyoc helped direct funds to deserving victims of the 1999 tornado that struck the Montgomery-275 area of Hamilton County.
The Kenwood Lions responded to an F-4 Tornado damaging on April 9, 1999 with assistance from LCIF and Ohio Lions Foundation. DDG and Cabinet Secretary-Treasurer Clark Van Scyoc administered service and purchased supplies with these grants. President John Whitacre helped to survey needs. Lion John Tolos of Montgomery and the Price Hill Lions helped secure the grant, assisted needs and screened requests. Television station 5, WLW broadcast our Lions services and searched for those to assist.
Governor Clark in 2000-2001 led District Lions in securing funds, labor, materials, and a $195,000 LCIF grant to build 5 habitat houses for 3 families in Cincinnati and 2 families in Dayton. Each family had handicapped members that needed handicapped accessibility. The Kenwood Lions among with 17 other 13-H Lions Clubs were successful in uniting our Habitat partners, churches, and University Habitat clubs to complete these beautiful houses.
The inclusion of women as members added a new source of leadership to fulfill the future of the Kenwood Lions Club.
Lions Clubs International is the world's largest service club organization with more than 1.4 million members in approximately 46,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas around the world.
