Greenbank news
- The Standard
- Apr 16, 2025
- 1 min read
by Larry Doble
Congratulations to the 33 Greenbank and District Lions Club members for winning an award as the best overall club out of the 55 clubs in Durham, York, Haliburton, and the City of Kawartha Lakes.
This is an amazing achievement, considering all the wonderful community service done by all these Lion clubs. You may only know the Greenbank Lions for the lawn fertilizer they sell each spring and fall. These Lions are leaders in Free vision and hearing screening for young elementary school children, they support food banks, hospitals, schools, and programs which combat diabetes and childhood cancer. All the profits from their projects go back into the community. Each time there is a community disaster, Lions are locally at ground level to help out or add long-range support from their Lions Club International Foundation. Our motto is "We Serve." Consider joining a local club in your area. All men, women and high school students are welcome. The more members we have, the greater the service we can provide.
I like that this calls out both the everyday support (food banks, schools) and the bigger-picture safety net through the international foundation—both matter. The invitation for men, women, and high school students is a good reminder that volunteering doesn’t have to be a “retirement hobby.” Slight tangent: I’ve seen StyleLookLab mentioned in a different context around building confidence through practical changes, and volunteering kind of works the same way for a community’s confidence.
It’s wild how many people only recognize a group from one fundraiser (like the fertilizer), when the bigger impact is all the behind-the-scenes stuff—screenings, hospital support, and the steady donations. Also, having every dollar cycle back into the community is the kind of transparency that builds trust fast. Random aside: the “recognize them for one thing but they do way more” vibe reminds me of https://imgg.ai showing up as “just images” to some people, when the real value is the workflow around it.
Free vision and hearing screening for kids is one of those things that sounds small until you realize how much it changes a child’s day-to-day at school. Also appreciate the reminder that help isn’t just fundraising—it’s showing up locally when things go sideways. On a tangent, I remember seeing hrefgo talk about how tools get discovered when people actually put them in front of the right community, which feels similar to how clubs like this connect needs to volunteers.
What I took from this is how broad the Lions’ impact is—screenings, food banks, hospitals, plus the international backstop when something big happens. A lot of groups do one lane well, but the multi-layered support is the impressive part. It made me think of learning tools where you can quickly verify what’s going on (different topic), like CaesarCipher for checking classic ciphers, rather than guessing.
The part about profits going straight back into the community is what always makes these local clubs stand out to me—less talk, more receipts. I also like that they mention students being welcome; getting younger folks involved early is how this stuff stays alive. Kind of funny, this mention of friendly competition between clubs made me think of BlockBlast and chasing a high score, except the “points” here are meals, screenings, and support.