Changing Footprints will have a table at this year’s Christ Child Festival, located in rooms A-C on 1st floor of the downtown Allen County Public Library. All are encouraged to bring in your used shoes on November 23 from 3-8, and again from 10-5 on November 25.

Cheryl Brockmann, leader of the local Changing Footprints shoe collection organization, reported that the group had collected 3392 pairs of shoes in October. These donations came from 26 different locations, including school and church shoe drives, shoe bins in the Allen County Libraries, local YMCAs, Indiana Physical Therapy offices, and several other sites. Changing Footprints distributed 6633 pairs of shoes to 13 different locations. They also sent many shoes to the Indianapolis office.

Changing Footprints is a 100% volunteer, non-profit, without any paid staff. No one is ever charged for shoes. There are 5 main distribution locations in Indiana: Rushville, North Indy, South Indy, Greenfield, and Fort Wayne. Over 500,000 pairs of shoes have been distributed statewide by the 5 locations in the past 17 years. Shoes are collected from a variety of sources: collection bins at shoe stores, athletic facilities, businesses, and churches; and shoe drives held at schools, churches,

Collecting and redistributing shoes saves them from ending up in landfills. Changing Footprints accepts all styles, types and sizes of shoes, no matter their condition. Damaged athletic shoes are converted into playground padding or running tracks through the Nike Grind program. Anyone interested in donating their used shows can find a shoe donation bin here:

https:www.changingfootprints.org/shoe-drops

 

If your organization or business would like to conduct a shoe drive for Changing Footprints, please call, text or email Rick at 260-755-2162; email: intj25@hotmail.com.

 

Please Donate — don’t trash — your unwanted shoes.

 

Bob Reynolds, President of the Hoagland Youth League, spoke at the Heritage Lions meeting last night. He gave his extensive history in baseball leadership positions, including being the assistant baseball coach at Heritage High School for 17 years. He became the President of HYL in 2021, and hopes to continue serving the league for many years to come.

Reynolds said the league continues to grow larger each year, a very positive sign. Some other communities have seen their leagues decrease over time due to the many competing activities for today’s youth. The past year saw 27 teams compete, in all age groups, with both male and female participants. There were nine T-Ball teams in 2022, a record, and a good sign that future participation in the league may increase. A total of 280 kids played ball in the HYL last summer. Everyone who signs up gets a chance to play and the players come from all over the area.

Mr. Reynolds emphasized that the overall goal of the league was to develop good sportsmanship and positive values for our local youth. HYL tries to improve the ball diamonds every year. In recent years the league has installed two fenced-in batting cages with turf, and rebuilt the dugouts. On their wish list is to have lights and scoreboards for all diamonds.

Running the HYL is a year-round volunteer job. The leaders meet monthly to plan the next year. Practices start in April and games begin in May. Reynolds appreciates the community support his league has received in the past.

The Heritage Lions Club (25B) in Hoagland sponsors a team each year and provides free ice cream to every player on opening day.

 

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On December 30, four volunteers loaded a shipping container from a Bluffton warehouse dock, measuring 40 feet long and 8 feet wide, bound for the Comayagua, Honduras Lions Club. Doctor Eric Purdy, a noted Indiana optical surgeon and a member of the Bluffton Lions Club, along with Honduras Lions Club member Rolando Yuja, a team of surgeons, and their staff and students from Augusta, Georgia, gathered donated medical equipment and supplies over many months.

 

Included in the shipment are 8 donated surgical microscopes, 5 cataract phacoemulsification machines, an Alcon Accurus posterior vitrectomy unit, an autoclave, a YAG laser, 5 OR patient carts, several storage cabinets, 30,000 pairs of glasses for the El Salvador Lions Club, 40 boxes of Alcon eye surgery mission supplies for Dr. Purdy’s February mission, donated orthopedic surgery instruments, 4 complete dental office suites, and much more.

 

The microscopes and surgical chairs were donated by hospitals updating their equipment. The dental equipment was donated by dentists who retired and dissolved their practices. Changing Footprints of Northern Indiana provided 1,651 pairs of gently used shoes, without charge, for victims of flooding in the area.

 

The packed container is on its way to Chicago and will then travel to New York by rail.  From there it is loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Honduras, arriving on February 14^th.

 

The Lions Clubs of Bluffton and Honduras wish to thank all of the eye and dental clinics, hospitals in Indiana, Ohio, and Georgia, and the ophthalmic companies for providing supplies and equipment for these mission projects. Thanks are also due the Lions clubs in Indiana for gathering the eyeglasses, Dr. Purdy for his willingness to provide much needed eye surgeries for the poor,  Changing Footprints for the year-round effort to collect used shoes, and the hospitals of Comayagua, Honduras and El Salvador.

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Heritage Lions Club member Rick Boys, along with Rolando Yuja (pictured) of the Honduras Lions and Jim Brockmann, loaded some 7,000 eyeglasses on Saturday and delivered them to John Geller of the Arcola Lions Club. Gellar stores the eyeglasses in his barn until the Arcola Lions hold their semi-annual eyeglass sorting party in the spring. After the Arcola sort, the eyeglasses are sent to be cleaned by the Goshen Lions. They are then sorted by prescription strength, male/female, children’s and sunglasses, and placed in envelopes for easier distribution. They will be shipped to missions in Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and other countries that lack the resources to manufacture these necessary items.

All three men, along with Dr. Eric Purdy of the Bluffton Lions, recently loaded over 30,000 eyeglasses, as well as some 1,700 used shoes gathered by Changing Footprints in New Haven, into a 40 ft by 8 ft. shipping container. Also loaded were many microscopes and specialized machines for dental and eye surgeries which had been donated by doctors and dentists.  Hospitals also provided several items. The container was trucked to Chicago, and will eventually move to New York and loaded onto a container ship bound for Honduras, arriving there on February 14th. Both Yuja and Brockmann are going to Honduras to assist in the distribution of shoes and glasses, and Dr, Purdy will be there to perform several eye surgeries.

Lions Clubs all over the world collect, sort, clean and prepare millions of glasses annually for distribution to those without access to eyeglasses. Changing Footprints, based in Indiana, has collected over 500,000 pairs of used shoes in the past 17 years. 80% or more of those are distributed to local social service agencies, local schools, and the homeless, all at no charge.

Please support these collection efforts. Lions Clubs eyeglasses donation boxes are located in nearly every library, optometrist’s office and locations throughout our area. Changing Footprints’ bins are in most local libraries, many YMCA and other athletic facilities, and all Indiana Therapy locations. Changingfootprints.org has a list of “shoe drops”.

 

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Lions District 25B Governor Sandra Zeigler spoke at the Tuesday joint Monroeville Lions/Heritage Lions meeting held at Saint John Lutheran Flatrock Church. She used the metaphor that if you have an individual domino, you cannot be very creative. But when you combine several dominoes, increasingly creative and helpful activities can be imagined and implemented. Lions working together can and do accomplish great things. Each Lion brings to the group their unique abilities and intentions. Governor Zeigler went on to describe several projects the Indiana Lions organization is involved in.

 

Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan seemed especially dear to her heart (she owns four dogs). Volunteers raise a newborn puppy until they are one year old (https://www.leaderdog.org/volunteer/host-a-breeding-dog/) . They then surrender the puppy to the Leader Dog program, where it is paired with a blind person. The dog and its new owner train together and build a relationship of trust and love. The owner is absolutely dependent on the dog to guide them about.

 

This training costs about $40,000 and is 100% philanthropically funded by Lions clubs, individual donors, corporate partners and foundations. There is no charge for any of our programs and services, including the guide dog, equipment, training, transportation to and from the campus, and room and board during training. Over 4,900 Lions Clubs, both nationally and internationally, contribute financially to the Leader Dog program.

 

Governor Zeigler also spoke of the Indiana Lions Speech and Hearing programs, the Indiana Lions Cancer Control Fund “to establish, promote, manage, and control a fund to be used for the control of cancer”, and the Indiana Lions efforts to enhance opportunities for students of the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. She also mentioned VisionFirst - Indiana Lions Eye Bank, “a leader in eye-tissue transplantation, committed to changing the lives of those in need”. Finally, she encouraged all members to support the Special Olympics, “which strives to change the lives of people with intellectual disabilities”.

 

Governor Zeigler and her husband got lost on their trip to the church, arriving a few minutes late. Mr. Zeigler was kidded on his lack of navigational skills. The funniest time came when, in the middle of the meeting, his GPS suddenly “spoke”, commanding him to “turn  right, then turn right again.”

The Heritage Lions and the Monroeville Lions motto is “We Serve” and we welcome anyone who wishes to help their local community to contact a Heritage or Monroeville Lion.

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Cary Gohlke, Cubmaster of Cub Scouts Pack 3348,  and Bob Mattes (pictured right to left) discussed their work with the Cub Scouts at the recent Heritage Lions meeting. The Heritage Lions serve as the Pack’s sponsor and donated the $100 national registration fee. Pack 3348 currently had five members who attend regularly and about 17 who often show up for their activities. The Cub Scouts are coed and range in age from 7 to 10-1/2 years old. After that they can become a Boy Scout or Girl Scout if they wish.  

Recent activities of the Pack include an overnight at the Hoagland pavilion, where they watched movies all night, participation in the Pinewood Derby in Ossian, and Day Camp in Bluffton, where they learned about archery, rockets and other fun stuff. Camping with their families at Chief Little Turtle was a highlight this year. They have a trip planned to the toboggan at Pokagon State Park in the next few weeks. Their small Pack did over $1500 in Scout popcorn sales this year, an extraordinary achievement.  

Gohlke and Mattes described their aim of growing their pack to give more young children the opportunities they themselves experienced when they were young. Nowadays, in Hoagland and elsewhere, children have many choices for how they spend their time. Scouting “is a family-centered, year-round program that teaches positive life skills, values, and attitudes. Cub Scout activities encourage character development, build citizenship, and promotes personal fitness.”

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On Tuesday, Past District Governor Al Arnold spoke to the Heritage Lions about the Indiana Lions Speech and Hearing programs. In 1925 Helen Keller spoke before the International Lions Convention and implored the Lions organization to help those who cannot see, speak or hear. “I appeal to you Lion, you who have your sight, your hearing, you who are strong and brave and kind.” From that point forward, the Lions organization dedicated itself to making Ms. Keller’s dream a reality. Lions all over the world would become her Knights of the Blind, the Deaf and the Mute.

The Indiana Lions established a 501(c)(3) organization in 1981. From their website: “Their mission is to assist those with speech and hearing impairments in the State of Indiana who are unable to obtain help elsewhere. To this end, they make funds available for charitable, educational, and scientific research. The main goal is to eliminate communication barriers for those with speech and hearing disorders. This is done by providing loaner hearing aids for children of needy families and low-cost hearing aids for those adults who qualify. Working in conjunction with Riley Hospital for Children and audiologists around the state, ILSH has made thousands of aids available.”

The Indiana Lions provided over $52,000 to four universities last year for S&H research: Indiana University, Purdue University, Indiana State, and Ball State. Scholarships are available for certain students in their speech and hearing studies. ILSH provides funds for five campers a year to attend a “deaf camp” in Oregon, where they befriend other deaf children.

They also collect used hearing aids throughout the state. These aids are repaired and offered to the hearing-impaired at no charge. It is estimated that one third of all those over the age of 70 need some help with their hearing. Hearing aids can be very expensive. Medicare only provides financial help for hearing tests. Medicaid offers free tests and one aid, and the VA offers free tests and both aids. In the past 30 years the Indiana Lions have donated over 6,500 hearing aids at no charge, saving taxpayers literally millions of dollars. Mr. Arnold concluded his talk by thanking local audiologists for their help and he implored the Lions to step up their efforts to collect used hearing aids through their eyeglass donation boxes.

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Deb Heath, Northeast Indiana Chapter Coordinator for Project Linus, gave a very interesting talk before the Heritage Lions last night. She explained how her non-profit group supplies blankets to hospitals, surgical centers, crisis centers, sleep clinics, the foster care program, and for Adoption Day at the Allen County Courthouse every November. Volunteers all over our area contribute new, handmade, washable, and kid-friendly blankets for this effort. Project Linus volunteers inspect each blanket to insure they are free from smoke, chemical odors or pet hair to prevent harm to the child who is given the blanket.

From the Project Linus website (project linus.org), their mission is to “Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.””

Ms. Heath told how the children, and their new siblings, are allowed to choose their own blankets during the annual Adoption Day at the Allen County Courthouse. Each year some 100-135 blankets are given to the adoptees. At the Grabill Food Bank during Christmas, a blanket is included in each box of food for the children. Parkview Hospital’s Pediatric Care section is another frequent recipient of these blankets. And hospitals in Auburn, Huntington and Angola have received blankets for their young patients. 

Last year over 2200 Project Linus blankets were distributed throughout our area, and already over 330 have been placed so far this year. Since the local chapter’s beginning, some 56,000 blankets have helped comfort children in Northern Indiana. Nationwide the 275+ Project Linus chapters have distributed over nine million blankets in the past 20 years. Drop off bins for new blankets are located at JOANN Fabric and Craft on Coldwater Road, Edwards Sewing Center on Rothman Road, and the New Haven City Hall. 

After her talk, the Heritage Lions voted to donate $200 to Project Linus to help them gather and distribute these blankets for children needing comfort and love. The Heritage Lions motto is “We Serve” and we welcome anyone who wishes to help their local community to contact a Heritage Lion.

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On Tuesday evening at St. John Lutheran Flatrock Church, Michael and Cheryl Okuly gave an interesting talk to the Heritage Lions about the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) in Indianapolis. They are both ISBVI Trustees for the Indiana Lions, working with Lions Clubs throughout Indiana to raise funds so blind students can acquire the oftentimes expensive materials they need to get an education.

 

ISBVI has almost 150 students, in grades K-12. The students stay at the school from Monday through Friday, then return home on weekends. There is an increasing effort for teachers to visit the student’s homes in an outreach program. The school is financed like any other Indiana public school and has the same academic requirements.

 

 

Mr. Okuly showed a single, very thick, volume of the King James Bible in Braille. The full Braille Bible takes 18 total volumes. A Braille laptop might cost three times what a regular laptop would cost. The Indiana Lions help these families by assisting with travel expenses, materials necessary for the blind student, and opportunities for increased social interaction with their peers. He explained that blind kids want the same things that sighted kids want. But oftentimes materials for the blind children are too expensive for their parents to afford.

 

Mr. Okuly gave a brief history of ISBVI, which was started in 1847. Teachers and administrators at the school tend to stay for many years, helping the same students as they advance into each higher grade. He explained that, beginning in 2024, a physical merger between the School for the Blind and the School for the Deaf is planned, with building renovations and new construction on the current blind school site. This project will take 5-7 years and cost an estimated $225 million. Once completed, Indiana will be home to a “state of the art” facility for blind and deaf students, and be considered among the best in the USA. The School for the Deaf and ISBVI will remain separate schools but they will share resources.

Indiana Lions Trustees hold an annual Work Day at ISBVI, cleaning the facility, washing windows, pulling weeds and mulching around the play areas. They also hold Brian’s Trike Race. Using adult-sized tricycles, up to 50 teams of four participants race around the circle-8, David Letterman-financed, track at the ISBVI, raising money for equipment and services at the ISBVI. (From the website) “By matching funds with other Indiana Lions Clubs, the Lions Clubs International Foundation and the Indiana Blind Children’s Foundation, Brian’s Trike Race funds have helped to purchase a playground, computers and other assistive technology for the students at the ISBVI.”

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Eric Purdy, M.D., a board-certified ophthalmologist living in Bluffton, IN,  gave a very interesting talk to the Arcola, IN Lions Club on Tuesday evening.“Dr. Purdy specializes in oculoplastic surgery, eye muscle surgery, and diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases. Oculoplastic surgery includes the surgical treatment of droopy eyelids, eyelid deformities and tumors, eyelid injuries, diseases and tumors of the orbit (eye socket area), and tear duct problems.” (Vision Care website)

 

Dr. Purdy showed a long list of countries he has visited in the past 27 years, mostly at his own expense, to perform corrective surgeries and to teach local surgeons. Resident ophthalmologists, nurses, and other medical personnel accompany Dr. Purdy’s team. Lions Clubs in these countries help with housing, eyeglasses exams and fittings, transportation, etc. He often conducts over 200 surgeries in a 2-3 week time period. He has been to Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Kenya, Cuba, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Cambodia.

 

He visited several of these countries multiple times, and intends to return to many of them in the future. He visited Sumatra soon after the 2004 tsunami killed 280,000 people. He also visited Haiti right after their devastating 2010 earthquake killed approximately 250,000 people. He cannot return to Haiti, however, as the country is now run by gangs. He also cannot return to Myanmar (Burma) since the government was overthrown by a military coup in 2021.

 

“The best kind of mission work involves creating connections that build with each visit. The goal is to develop long-term and mutually beneficial relationships that improve the existing situation in an underserved location and to facilitate these changes in a sustainable way,” said the medical director of an eye institute. Alcon, a global eye-care corporation, has donated $200,000 worth of supplies several times to support Dr. Purdy’s overseas work. “Medical mission teams work side-by-side with local eye care professionals to provide hands-on training, while also helping to increase patient awareness about the need for proper eye care.” (Alcon) 

 

On his recent trip to Honduras, Dr. Purdy, Rolando Yuga of the Honduras Lions Club, and Jim Brockmann of Changing Footprints loaded a container at a Bluffton warehouse. Included in the shipment were 8 donated surgical microscopes, 5 cataract phacoemulsification machines, an Alcon Accurus posterior vitrectomy unit, an autoclave, a YAG laser, 5 OR patient carts, several storage cabinets, 40 boxes of Alcon eye surgery mission supplies for Dr. Purdy’s February mission, donated orthopedic surgery instruments, 4 complete dental office suites, and much more.  

 

The microscopes and surgical chairs were donated by hospitals updating their equipment. The dental equipment was donated by dentists who retired and dissolved their practices. There were 30, 000 eyeglasses for the El Salvador Lions Club boxed and organized by the Wanatah, IN Lions Club and the Arcola Lions Club. There were also 1,680 pairs of used shoes gathered by Jim Brockmann and his Changing Footprints group.

 

Dr. Purdy used his many slides to show before and after pictures of some of the thousands of eye patients he has helped. He described how he often encounters unusual deformations around the eye socket in both young children and adults, and he often must get creative to solve those problems, such as using a drill from his basement for a procedure. He told many funny stories. Once he found a vendor at an eye convention that sold generic prosthetic eyeballs for $2 each (a “good” prosthetic eye can run $3,000). He bought a whole bag of them in various sizes. Another time a boy was afraid to tell his mother what he had done to hurt his eye. Dr. Purdy removed several large pieces of wood from around the boy’s swollen eye. Only then would the boy tell his mother he had fallen on a stick.

 

Helen Keller said this at the Lions Club International convention in 1925: “The opportunity I bring to you, Lions, is this…Will you not help me hasten the day when there shall be no preventable blindness; no little deaf, blind child untaught; no blind man or woman unaided?  I appeal to you, Lions, you who have your sight, your hearing, you who are strong and brave and kind. Will you not constitute yourselves Knights of the Blind in this crusade against darkness?” Dr. Purdy has been living these words by his life-long quest to improve the sight of the disadvantaged.

Dr. Purdy began his long history of eye care mission trips by joining northeast Indiana’s District 25B Lions mission trips to Central American. District 25B’s International Understanding project was started by Past District Governor Bill Truby of the Bluffton Lions Club. PDG Truby invited Dr. Purdy to join the district’s mission trip in 1996 starting an amazing story. Past Council Chair Greg Jefferies of the Fort Wayne Central Lions Club continued PDG Truby’s legacy for many years for the District. Dr. Purdy is continuing PDG Truby and PCC Jefferies legacy of SERVING those in need and being Helen Keller’s “Knights of the Blind”.

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This past month, the Heritage Lions Club has been collecting various items needed for the Charis House in Fort Wayne.  The Charis House is a unit of the Rescue Mission that helps women and children facing a homeless crisis, providing a safe haven for women and children as they recover from trauma, addiction, and self-defeating choices they have made in the past.  The program provides spiritual, emotional, physical and educational needs for these women and children.

 

When the Lions contacted the Charis House, they expressed some specific needs of these women as they enter the facility, as they usually bring nothing of their own.  These include leggings and T-shirts, which they can wear to both sleep in and wear during the day.  They also needed towels, washcloths, and personal hygiene products.  The Lions were able to purchase 50 pair of new leggings, 75 T-shirts, 24 towels, and 36 wash cloths.  They also purchased several bottles of shampoo, conditioners, lotions, deodorants, razors, and fingernail clippers.  The Heritage Lions thank Thrivent for the Community Impact Card to kick-start the project and Arlen Horsewood, DDS, who donated several oral hygiene products such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, and dental floss. Charis House expressed their gratitude for these much-needed items.

 

The committee for this project are pictured from left to right: Lions Jan Hockemeyer, Gerry Franke, Pam Birch, Cindy Wolf, and Dan Will.

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Heritage Lion Jack Clear was awarded the Melvin Jones Fellowship award last night for over 20 years of Lions service in our community. Past District Governor Roger Cash presented a surprised and humbled Clear with the Melvin Jones plaque. "Lions Clubs world-wide recognize outstanding individuals by bestowing on them an award that is named after its founder Melvin Jones. This award is the highest form of recognition and embodies humanitarian ideas consistent with the nature and purpose of Lionism. The recipient of this award has gone above and beyond to serve both our club and the community." 

 

Jack Clear will serve as the Heritage Lions First Vice President in the coming 2023-2024 year and continues to help our community through his hard work on the ice cream trailer, peanut sales and several other projects.  

 

The Heritage Lions motto is “We Serve” and we welcome and encourage everyone who wishes to help their local community to contact a Heritage Lion.

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