Short version:    Helen asked.

                            We said, "Yes!"

                            WE SERVE!

Longer version:  Who are the Lions?  The Lions are men and women just like you.  The one thing that unites all Lions is a desire to serve their community in a variety of ways. 

In 1917, a Chicago insurance executive named Melvin Jones asked his business club to expand their horizons.  By uniting and working together, he said, the business groups around the country could contribute to the betterment of their communities and the world at large.  One of these business groups was named "The Lions Club" which became the name of the larger group.  On June 7, 1917 they held an organizational meeting and The Lions Club was born.  The club went international just three years later when Canada joined them.  Later, Mexico, China and Cuba all joined as well as over 200 other countries and regions of the world.

Just a few years later, in 1925, a blind and deaf woman by the name of Helen Keller addressed the Lions at the international convention in Cedar Point, Ohio.  During that address, she asked the Lions to focus their energies on ending preventable blindness wherever it is found.  She challenged the gathered Lions to "be her knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness".

In 1945 with the formation of The United Nations, The International Lions Club became the only non-govenmental agency to sign the charter that established the UN.  To this day, The International Lions Club remains a consultive member of the UN.  Each year in March, the UN holds its annual Lions Day at the UN where the winner of the Lions International Peace Poster Contest is announced.