Community service in West Corners: eyes, books, food and neighbors

Fundraising is how the West Corners Lions Club pays for its work. Service is the work. For more than sixty years, the members of this club have spent their time doing the quiet, practical things a community needs: testing children’s eyesight, reading scholarship applications, restocking food pantry shelves, signing cards for people who do not get much mail anymore, and showing up for neighbors in the middle of a hard week. None of it makes headlines. All of it matters. 

Here is what that service looks like. 

Vision screening for schoolchildren

The club provides free vision screening for children at area schools, using a specialized screening camera that can catch eye abnormalities early, often before a child or parent would notice anything wrong. The club owns its screening camera, and its members are trained to operate it. Catching a vision problem early can change how a child learns, reads, and sees the world. This is some of the most important work the club does, and it goes straight to the founding mission of Lions clubs everywhere.

Eye exams and glasses

The club helps students in the Maine-Endwell, Union-Endicott, and Vestal school districts get the eye care they need. A family does not have to go through the club to use the benefit. Most school nurses have a letter they can give a student to take to a local eye care center, where the cost of an exam and glasses is covered. The club funds the benefit. The school nurse and the eye care center handle the rest. 

Scholarships for local students

Every year, the club’s scholarship committee reads every word of every application from students across the area’s school districts. The students in this region are extraordinary, and helping a few of them get where they are going is one of the things this club is proudest of. The club currently awards a $750 scholarship to students at Union-Endicott, Maine-Endwell, and Vestal (the amount may change from year to year). Any graduating senior headed to college may apply. Applications come from, and go back to, the school guidance counselor. Each application is tracked by number, so the committee never sees a name. Applications are scored on a matrix that gives heavy weight to community service and to plans to study in a field of service, such as nursing, teaching or social work.

Applications are due back by April 1, 2027. Ask your school guidance counselor for this year’s deadline. Completed applications go back to the guidance counselor, who sends them on to us.

Hearing aids

The club collects used hearing aids. They are cleaned, reconditioned, and passed on to people who need them.

You can drop off used hearing aids at any club meeting or in the donation bin on the front porch at 509 Carl Street, Endicott, next to Smile Designers dental office. To learn more, see our Ways to Give page.

Halloween Trunk-or-Treat: books instead of candy

Every Halloween, the club runs a Trunk-or-Treat, but instead of candy, every child goes home with a book. It is a small idea that does a lot at once: it gets books into kids’ hands, it makes the holiday a little more memorable, and it puts the club shoulder to shoulder with families in the community.

This year, the event is Saturday, October 31, from 11 AM to 1 PM, at First Baptist Church, 16 Church Street, Maine, NY. This year’s books have already been collected. Thank you to everyone who helped.

Food pantry support

The club restocks area food pantries, sometimes a planned drive, sometimes just a trunk full of groceries when the shelves are running low. It is one of the most direct things we do: empty shelves one day, full ones the next.

Holiday clothing and gifts for neighbors in need 

At the holidays, the club provides clothing and small gifts for community members who are going without. It is a season when need is felt sharply, and the club works to make sure local families and individuals are not overlooked.

Cards and visits for area nursing homes 

Club members sign and deliver cards for residents of local nursing homes, a small thing that means a great deal to someone who does not get much mail. It is a service project the club has run for years, and one it plans to open up so community members and families can sign cards alongside us.

Help for neighbors facing emergencies 

When a family in the community loses a home to fire, or faces a sudden hardship, the club does not wait for the next meeting to vote on it. It acts. This is the part of Lions work that is hardest to put on a calendar, and it captures what a service club is for.

Special Olympics 

The club cooks and serves hot dogs and drinks, free, to Special Olympics athletes, their families and friends, and the volunteers who make the event run. It is not a fundraiser. Nobody pays. It is the club doing what it does best, in service of an event that deserves it.

Supporting other community organizations 

The West Corners club does not try to do everything alone. It also gives to other local organizations doing essential work in the area, among them Mom’s House, CHOW, and Catholic Charities, along with many others. When a group is already serving the community well, helping fund that work is service too.

Beyond West Corners: national and worldwide Lions work 

Being part of Lions Clubs International means the club’s reach extends well beyond the village. The West Corners club supports the broader Lions network, including the Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF),

the Brandel-Murphy Foundation, and the NYS & Bermuda Lions Foundation, as well as organizations like Guide Dogs for the Blind. A donation made in West Corners can end up doing good far from here. 

Why sight, and why service 

Helping people see has been the central mission of Lions Clubs International since Helen Keller challenged the organization to become “knights of the blind” in 1925. That is why vision runs through so much of what Lions clubs do, and for the West Corners club it means owning a screening camera and testing children’s eyes at school, and funding exams and glasses for students who need them. But the work has never stopped at sight. A Lions club serves wherever it sees a need, and in West Corners that has meant students, books, food, families, and neighbors near and far, for over sixty years. 

Get involved 

Most of this work is done by a small group of members who simply decided to show up. If any of it sounds like something you would want to be part of, whether that is joining the club or just lending a hand at a card-signing or a food drive, get in touch.