Lionistic Year 2021-22 was ninety years in the making. And at times it seemed to contain ninety years of energy. After two-years of relative inactivity the Club was anxious to get moving.
And we had a very good year.
We found a new home at the Hall on Foundry; recruited one of the largest pools of new members in the state; extended support to strangers we will never meet who suffered the loss of their town; held several large-scale community activities that reintroduced us to the community as a leading service Club; worked thousands of volunteer hours at the Thrift Store, sold affordable goods to the community, diverted an untold number of items from the waste stream and generated enough revenue to allow the Club to make one of the largest donations on record to the Massachusetts Lions Eye Research Foundation. And we sold the Thrift Store organ.
But it was also a very tough year.
We lost several key members of the Club, losses that hit us hard.
However, no one who leaves the Easton Lions Club ever really leaves the Easton Lions Club. Whether by death or decision, when a member leaves the Club the inspiration, creativity, imagination, and energy that they brought to the organization remains.
As of this month, 170-men and women are members of the Easton Lions. And it is only natural that we identify ourselves as the Easton Lions Club. After all, who works harder than the Thrift Store volunteers, or the committee members who put in hundreds of volunteer hours before an event is even announced?
But we are more than the gathering of 170-souls.
Our history dates back to October 1, 1931, when Bill Fenwick and twenty-two “service minded men” formed the Lions Club of Easton. Over the past 90-years, the Club has been filled with men and women who were just as invested in its success as we are today.
So while Becca Dononhue and Mark Ingalls and Megan Ferguson and Jon Morgan and Rich Freitas and Nancy Sullivan and Ray Morrell and Arlene Keach and Henry Narsasian are the Easton Lions, so too are Ruthie Calvagne (2009), and Lee Williams (1979) and Louis Freitas (1955), and Robert Kane (1968), and Duke Duhamel (1957), and William Ladd (1948), and the hundreds of other citizens who called themselves members of the Club.
We are the beneficiaries of the efforts and reputations of those who served before us, just as those who join us ten, thirty, or ninety-years from now will reap the benefits of our service.
The Easton Lions have a proud history. And 2021-22 was a very good year; it continued and extended the long tradition of what has become one of the preeminent service Clubs in the Nation.
Go Lions! Long may we serve.
Yours in Lionism.
Andrew Parker, President, 2021-22
Easton Lions Club
