Flock Cancer May 11, 2024

The club volunteered for the third year in a row to be crossing guards for the Flock Cancer Walk.  This year we volunteered in memory of Lion Tom Caperon who had organized our volunteers for this year and the previous two years.  Lion Tom passed away shortly before the walk and he will be missed.

Ronald MacDonald House

Bench Lions serving lunch and collecting pull tabs for Ronald McDonald House!

Food Bank

The club sorts, bags, boxes or whatever, food at the Idaho Food Bank monthly.  The Idaho Food Bank works with over 450 partners through out the state and provides 100 thousands of meals annually.  We help pack 3100 pounds of elbow pasta during the February.

One of Lions Club International’s Global Causes is combating food insecurity and the Boise Bench Lions Club has several activities related to this issue.  Recently the club donated $300 and over 200 pounds of food to the City of Light Womens and Children shelter in Boise.  The club also volunteers at the Idaho Foodbank on a regular basis and cooks at Ronald MacDonald house and assists with meals at Interfaith Sanctuary.  Globally, Lions Clubs in other countries also work on food insecurity as it is a worldwide issue.

Walk to End Alzheimer's

The Boise Valley Lions Team which had several members from Boise Bench participated in the Walk on September 28, 2024 in support of the Alzheimer's Association.  

Found Kids Booth at the Western Idaho Fair  August 18 to 29th, 2024

Copy and paste this link to view the Channel 7 promo for the Found Kids Booth

The Boise Bench Lions staffed the Found Kids Booth.  We volunteered from noon to 11PM and have been doing this project since 2014.  Parents or guardians can bring their kids to the booth to be registered.  This year over 900 kids got a numbered arm band and record contact information for the parent or guardian.  Bench Lions logged 291 volunteer hours during the Fair.  If the kids are separated from the adults, they can go to any security staff or vendor and will be brought back to the booth.  We or security will contact the adults to recover the kids.  We often end up with unregistered kids who are reunited with the adults, so it all works out in the end. (Occasionally, an adult shows up as they get lost too.

Eyeglass Sorting

Boise Bench Lions spend time every week at the Envision Office, sorting and distributing donated used eye glasses.  This is recycling for good, and many people in 3rd world countries benefit from the donation of these glasses, usually distributed through medical missions.  The typical year sees upwards of 80000 pairs of glasses from Idaho, ROAR!  Over  60000 pairs were sorted in fiscal year 2022-2023

Vision and Hearing Screenings

The Boise Bench Lions are proud to be able to offer Vision and Hearing Screenings at local schools.  The methods have evolved over the years to we now are able to use electronic vision screeners which are a lot faster and easier to use than charts of various sorts.  We also are able to use portable audiometers for school screenings. 

Copy and paste this link to view a video about vision screening   https://youtu.be/7EuuouwHvz0

Sleep in Heavenly Peace partnership

Newest partnership for the Bench Lions in 2017.  The club has built some beds for Sleep in Heavenly Peace and will be also active in delivering and setting them up,  We were all surprised by the sheer need for beds.The Bench Lions and Sleep in Heavenly Peace have an ongoing  working relationship. The club delivers and assembles beds for families in the area in need of beds. Several Lions inspected recently built beds to get them ready for delivery.