Lions Club

Plymouth - Michigan

Giving Back to the Community through Volunteer Activity and Contributions to Organizations and Individuals Needing Assistance.

Lions are an international network of 1.3 million men and women in 202 countries and geographic areas who work together to answer the needs that challenge communities around the world.

The Lions Clubs trace their beginnings to one man, Melvin Jones, who, with leaders of 23 independent service clubs, formed an association known as the Lions Clubs. This was in 1917. Three years later, in 1920, a Lions Club in downtown Detroit sponsored a Lions Club in Windsor, Canada, thereby creating the International Association of Lions Clubs. In 1925, Helen Keller, at an International Convention, challenged the Lions to become "Knights Of The Blind in the crusade against darkness." Assistance to the blind in all forms has been our most prominent goal ever since.

Known for working to end preventable blindness, Lions participate in a vast variety of projects important to their communities. These projects range from cleaning up local parks to providing supplies to victims of natural disasters.

Beginning in 1917, the association of Lions clubs has provided millions of people with the opportunity to give something back to their communities.

The Plymouth Lions Club, part of District 11A-1, Region 2, Zone 2, was chartered in February, 1948 under the sponsorship of the Detroit Northwest Lions Club. Our club began with twenty members, and as of Oct '08 is one of our zone's largest at 80 members.  Today our membership has eleven Life Members, and seven who have received the Melvin Jones Award.

The following is a copy of an article written for the Observer in May of 1985 by Sam Hudson the noted Plymouth Historian.

Plymouth Lions have Helped blind for 38 years

      Max Todd, Harvey Cooper and Al McClow spearheaded the formation of the Plymouth Lions Club the year they were put out to pasture by the Plymouth Jaycees. That was in 1948.

      Todd ran the Saddle Ridge Riding Club at Curtiss and Joy roads while Cooper and McClow worked for Evans Products Company. They got the help of Ward Jones of Detroit’s Uptown Lions and of Robert Nesbitt of the Northwest Detroit Lions.

      Jones made and sold kitchen fans in Plymouth. Nesbitt owned and operated two Detroit area clothing stores. Nesbitt got the Northwest Detroit Club to sponsor the Plymouth group.

      The organizational meeting was held December 18 at the Saddle Ridge Club.

      Thereafter, the club met twice a month at the Hotel Mayflower. In 1963, the club moved to Lofy’s Arbor-Lil Restaurant, then to the Thunderbird Restaurant, About seven years ago the group returned to the Hotel Mayflower.

      Of the 30 charter members only Bruce Richard, William Fehlig and Roland Widmayer are still active. Fehlig a local Realtor was the club’s president in 1957-58. He recalls that Richard, a long-time friend, asked him to join.

      “I didn’t know anything about the Lions or its activities at the time” Bill says. “You’ll laugh, but when Bruce approached me I thought the organization had something to do with the Detroit Lions”

      Bruce Richard to whom I am indebted for much of the information I have about the Lions, is a retired Ford engineer. He was the Club’s president in 1963-64. Roland Widmayer, a member of the Lions’ first board, is a retired manager of the local Kroger store.

      Membership in the club reached its lowest level in the early 1950s. Only ten members attended meetings. Then came the upward trend with membership today at 65.

      Lions International, of which the Plymouth club is a member, was founded in 1917, the year John F. Kennedy was born. Lions clubs are noted for providing Leader Dogs and white canes for the blind.

In welcoming the new club the Plymouth Mail declared:

      “During its many years of existence this service organization has done more to bring the blind to the attention of the people than any other organization that ever existed.”

      Lions were inspired to assist the blind by Helen Keller, who spoke at one the earliest conventions of Lions International. Miss Keller, born a blind deaf-mute, overcame her handicaps to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. She had been taught to speak by her long-time tutor, Anne Sullivan, also a remarkable woman.

      After Miss Keller’s speech, the Lions took up the challenge and have been active in assisting the blind since. The Lions sponsored Leader Dog for the Blind School at Rochester Mich. Is the largest of its kind in the world. Ward Jones, the first president of the Plymouth Lions, was one of those who helped establish the school.

      Lions clubs in Michigan sponsor an eye bank in Ann Arbor in conjunction with the Kellog Eye Center in the University of Michigan. Through this facility, corneas are made available to those who require them. Lions assist the project financially and encourage people to donate their eyes after death.

      Lions also help support the Penrickton Center in Taylor, Mich. An institution for handicapped children who are blind, and the Welcome Home for elderly blind in Grand Rapids.

      Plymouth Lions make eye examinations and glasses available to needy children through the Plymouth-Canton and Northville school systems. They donate white canes, wheelchairs, and braille watches. The have helped to support remedial reading camps, given assistance to the Salvation Army, supplied large-print books to the local library and to seniors at Tonquish Creek Manor, given financial aid to Growth Works and contributed to the cost of The Gathering pavilion in Plymouth.

      The club has also built picnic tables for the Township Park.

The late Ed Miller, a life member of the Plymouth Lions, got the club to sponsor a Boy Scout troop which he led for 15 years.

      In 1959, Miller received Scouting’s highest honor, the Silver Beaver award.

      To support its community projects, Plymouth Lions have use a variety of fund-raisers. Best known is the white-tag sale every spring. Others are the Millionaire’s Party held in February at the Cultural Center, the Lions Fish Fry at the Fall Festival and the Candy Cane sale at Christmas time.

      In the past the Lions have sponsored a local travel series and built a house. The house, a six-room brick residence built on Ball street in 1955-56, under the direction of Bill Fehlig, was sold at a price that netted the club $8,000 for its community projects.

      Some time ago the club formed the Plymouth Lions Foundation, a non-profit corporation to which tax-deductible donations can be made.

      Lions prominent in local government have included J. Rusling Cutler, municipal judge in the 1940s and city commissioner in the 1950s. Nandino Perlongo, the blind attorney, who was municipal judge in the late 1940s, and Eldon Martin who was mayor of Plymouth a few years ago.

      Cutler was president of the Lions in 1953-54 and Martin in 1968-69. The current president is William Baxter. Baxter, who raises Black Angus cattle on his farm on Gotfredson Road, says that during the celebration of the club’s 38th anniversary in February, Bruce Richard and William Fehlig were made life members for their dedication to the clubs activities.

Plymouth Lions Club
P.O. Box 701159
Plymouth, MI 48170