San Mateo Lions Charitable Causes
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.
Annual Club Projects
Club Annual Activities & Committees For 2019-2020: - More activties will be added and dates updated as applicable
SEPTEMBER
September 15, 2019 – Autumn Moon Festival
September 21, 2019 - Ryder Park Beach Cleanup
September 27, 2019 - Bingo Pasta Fundraiser at the American Legion
OCTOBER
October 2019 - White Cane Days – Usually First weekend
NOVEMBER
November 14, 2019 - District Governors Visitation to General Meeting
November TBA - Food Deliveries for Samaritan House on Thanksgiving Day
DECEMBER
December 7, 2019 - Bowling for Kids Tournament at Bel Mateo Bowl
December 8, 2019 Joint Holiday Gala at venue TBA
JANUARY
January 2020 District Leadership Forum
FEBRUARY
February 21-23, 2020 - MD-4 Convention Visalia, CA
February 2020 Hot Dog & Movie Night at the Boys & Girls Club (prior to daylight savings time)
February 2020 Hearing Days – usually 1st weekend
MARCH
March 2020 Opening Day of National Little League Pancake Breakfast
March 2020 District Eye glasses collection day
March 2020 Park Clean-up Day on Sunday
APRIL
April 2020 Earth Day Clean Up in Park or at Beach
April 2020 Downtown San Mateo Restaurant Walk
April 2020 - Last Saturday - Rebuilding Together
MAY
May 14-17, 2020 – District 4-C4 Convention in Redding, CA
May 2020 --Second Annual Mary Breit Memorial Bowling Tournament
JUNE
June 14, 2019 – Flag Day at the Mid-Peninsula Boys & Girls Club
June 2020 – 3rd International Gala
June 26-30 - LCI International Convention in Signapore,
June – August 2020 District 4-C4, PCL, SFCCL and Club Installations
JULY
July 2020 - District Cabinet Installation
AUGUST
August 2020 - First Wednesday – Fun Day at Classic Bowl in Daly City
- Lions Club Charitable Causes
- Campain SightFirst II
- Lions in Sight
- City of Hope
- Kases for Kids
Project Descriptions and Links
Mid Peninsula Boys & Girls Club
SM Lions Club volunteers in several projects annual with the local Boys & Girls Club. Our planned activities include a Movie Night, BBQ, and Flag Day Ceremony with the USMC active duty Color Guard.
Bingo
Bingo held at local American Legion Hall to raise money for our veteran charities and other Lions charities.
Senior Health Fair
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. You may also contact the Senior Center at 650-522-7490.
Maple Street Shelter
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.
Boys & Girls Club Banquet Dinner
On October 15, 2011, San Mateo Lions will be honored by Mid-Peninsula Boys & Girls Club as Service Organizaiton of the Year.
White Cane Days
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.
Samaritan House Meal Delivery
On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, SM Lions will deliver meals to Samaritan House shut-ins. Samaritan House 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.
Bowling Toys for Kids Tournament
Annual bowling tournament held at Bel Mateo Bowl to raise money and toy donations for local children in need for holiday season celebration.
Joint Holiday Gala
Annual holiday party from multiple local Lions Club in celebration of holiday season.
Adopt A Family
Hearing Days
Flag Days
Little League Pancake Breakfast
Eye Glass Collection
Bingo / Spaghetti Feed
Rebuilding Together
Campaign SightFirst II
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:
- Since 1990, SightFirst has awarded $211 Million US for 896 projects in 90 countries
- Prevented serious vision loss for 20 million
- Provided 80.5 million treatments for river blindness
- Restored sight for 7.3 million with cataract
Lions In Sight
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.
City of Hope
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.
Kases for Kids
Providing backpacks with toy Lions to foster children in the sytem, to help them have a place for their belongings when they leave the foster home to retun home or into a permanent placement.
Past Club Projects
United States Marine Corps Cake Cutting Ceremony
This event was introduced to our club by Lion Marlin Gill, a former Marine and past 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. For more info... Marine Corps Cake Cutting Ceremony
San Mateo Chamber of Commerce Mega Mixer Booth
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. 2011 Event will be held on September 28 at the San Mateo Expo Center.
San Mateo Lions Garage Sale Fundraiser
This is our past annual fundraiser where we sold donated items from our members and friends to raise money for our club. We now sell our donated items at Community Thrift Store in SF under the code #198, which sells our items on consignment to raise money for our club. See web site for details on how you can donate and support our club: www.communitythrift.org
Youth & Community Activites Raffle
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.
Spring Festival for Humanity
In February 2014, we had our first Spring Festival for Humanity fundraier to support Lions of Life, a charitable cause seeking to save up to 4 million children from dying of diarrhea related diseases in underdeveloped countries. The event featured Karaoke, speeches, dancing, auction, and a 7 course chinese food meal. Event sold out in 12 days and raised $10,000 to support Lions of Life.
