In the advent of the Christmas phase of the Holiday Giving Project, Lion and Leo Elves were making preparations in many ways; some were shopping for clothes, some were gathering and moving foods, some were looking for mittens and socks, while others were finding the right stocking stuffers; others were contacting their families, wrapping the gifts, packing the foods, stuffing stockings, and checking their lists to make sure every family had all of their deliveries readied to go! And then the Christmas Giving Project was ready to deliver to 30 families of 80 children and 63 adults on Saturday, Dec. 17.  Ten teams of Lions, family and friends, 30 in all, gathered at the Elf Shop to finalize the project.  After getting some warm coffee and buns, the “chariots and sleighs” were packed in short order, and “away, away” they flew, only to find we were missing a ham, milk, eggs and butter for one family.  Oops, someone goofed!  “Goofed” showed up carrying in the missing items with head held low saying ‘Do you need these!”  Immediately, Goofed was sent “away” to meet up with the other sleigh that didn’t have a complete load!  WHEW!  What a great project!  The sleighs carried 4 boxes of perishable and nonperishable foods and two large trash bags of gifts!  One sleigh had two  bikes included and as they approached the homes along with Santa in his red suit, one elf would took the bike around back of the house while the others entertained the family at the front door.  Wonderment of the surprise gift was an answer to a child’s wish, for sure! Other Elves found the families very receptive to their visits. Oh to be a child again! Or maybe, even an Elf – a Lion Elf!

To round out the project, 55 Lions, family members and friends tolled for 200 hours and spent $4000 to make the project a complete one.  Each child had an outfit of clothing, 2 toys, mittens, gloves and socks and more. Each family had a box of tissues, a stocking filled with useful items, 2 towels and washcloths and miscellaneous items.

Many, Many Elves partnered with the Lions to make this project a most enjoyable one.  The Tradesmen Motorcycle Club of the Damascus area donated some 160 toys from a Jingle Bell Run to the project. The boxes to pack the foods in were donated by Lion Peg and Dave Stone; The dinner rolls were donated by Huang Distributors; The festive homemade cookie filled boxes were made and prepared by the Goldstein Family; Gladhill Brothers donated Gift Bags and 3 toys for the babies; Richard Schoeb, LLC donated a tooth brush and toothpaste for every family member; Lions donated stocking stuffers, mittens, hats, socks and Chris Fletcher donated a last minute toy!

In addition the Holiday Fund Lions have been scouting the Damascus businesses and friends of Lions to help fund the project!  Thanks to all Lions who helped fill “Lion Albert’s” Christmas Fund jar!  What a tradition!

The Holiday Giving Project was truly a partnership this year!  Again, we have served the families of our Damascus Community in hopes of an enjoyable Christmastime this year for them.  Thank you to all the Lions, family and friends who assisted in making this project a great one! You helped make a child and parent smile this Christmas!    Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 2, twenty-five Seniors gathered at the Senior Center for the Lions Party.  Lion Sue Suddath had games and prizes for them to participate in.  She had homemade sugar cookies made for them and asked them to decorate the cookie with tubes of icing.  What a great job they did.  She had other Christmas games that they all played as well.  Lion George Hibbard helped with a sing-a-long while Lions Joy Schwab and Mary Frances Gosnell helped the Seniors with their projects.  Four Seniors were honored for having birthdays in December.  Lions Sue prepared refreshments of three homemade delicious cakes, ice cream and drink.  As each Senior left, they were given a gift bag.  Oh, what a Holiday Treat for them.  The Lions are most welcomed at the center with their parties!

Thank you to all of you who worked with the Thanksgiving food and delivery to make it another successful project. I am amazed with the energies and cooperation that you put forth! You are a great group of folks to work with. Ya git in thar an’ ya gitter dun! No fooling around!

Seriously, Lion Chris profiled all the families and obtained so much info for us – some corrections as well as some incite into the family situation.

Lion Bob Newlin again coordinated the School Food Drives with Rocky Hill Middle School coming thru with approximately 2500 items and Damascus High School with approximately 1200 items. We take half of the DHS Food Drive while the Legion receives the other half. Thanks to all the “food movers”.

Lion Joy coordinated the sorting of food and packing it into the boxes with the help of 8 other Lions – there was no socializing, you all kept your hands busy and had completely filled all the food boxes in 2 and half hours.

Lions Warren and Rusty made up the boxes, bagged the apples and kept the cardboard under control.  Lion Bob Snapp assigned all the boxes to the families.  Lion Warren went with me to Safeway to get the non-perishables on Friday.  Lion Ray met me at Safeway on Saturday to get the perishable items.

And then to make it all happen, 9 teams of Lions, family and friends loaded up their vehicles and made the deliveries on Saturday AM.

We were finished Saturday by 9:30.

We clocked over 150 hours on this project, with approximately 40 people involved and spent $1,471.00 on food. Butler’s Orchard donated the apples, Huang Distributors donated 2 dozen dinner rolls and the Goldstein Family baked and elegantly prepared a special pumpkin loaf package for each family. Hyatt Building and Supply, namely Phil Green, graciously let us use the room, used their pallets and loader to move the food for us and have stored the non perishables that we did not use until Christmas. When you see any and all of these donors, please express our appreciation.

Again – Thank you to all of you! It sure makes a project so satisfying when all of us put our efforts forth to serve! I am so grateful for all of you and the Lions Club!

Basket Bingo benefits the Damascus Lions Scholarship Program. Our bingo on September 30^th will again be sufficient enough to support the scholarships that were issued in July. Thanks to all the Lions and businesses who sponsored a basket as well as those who purchased tickets and took part in the evening’s games.

The ticket sales reflected the economy – 92 tickets were sold. We collected 64 pairs of glasses and 3 hearing aids. The Damascus Community Fair Queen, Susan Hilton, was on hand to help the Lions with the bingo winners. The fireman had some tasty food for sale and helped us set up as well as clean up.

There were 15 Lions who helped with the bingo, 10 friends of Lions helped and Partners-in-service, Jennifer Molesworth and Irene Hardy helped with the organization of the bingo game sheets (saving us an expense of about $125.00) and the mailing of the flyers. Thanks ladies! Also a huge vote of thanks to Lion Tess Gladhill for donating the items to fill the baskets. The baskets were overflowing!

Thanks to all who supported the project in any way. We will realize a profit of $3,025.00.

The rains continued into Thursday and Friday to make for a muddy, wet, muggy and busy time working at the Damascus Community Fair. Made ruts in the grounds to get the popcorn popper and paraphernalia to the pole barn only to find no table. Returned with the load on Friday AM cutting more ruts and spinning into the pole barn. The night watchmen came to my rescue and unloaded everything. They even help set up and assisted hooking up the popcorn machine. What a blessing!
Turned the new popcorn popper on at 6:45 AM on Friday and it did not stop until 7 PM except for times when it needed to cool down. A couple of school classes canceled but more came than was expected. By noon, we had given out over 400 bags of popcorn. Fair attendees started coming in around 4 pm after the rains had stopped and we continued to serve 300 more guests. There were a goodly number of Lions who came to help but if you looked at us all; our hair was wet, our shoes were muddy, our clothes were muddy and we all looked alike!
Saturday was nice and sunny; the crowd was very good as by 7 pm they had devoured 950 bags of popcorn. Could have made more but —- ran out of popcorn! Again a goodly number of Lions came to help.
Had some popcorn kernels in inventory but needed seasoning and butter – went to Sam’s first thing Sunday AM only to find they were out of Seasoning, so purchased the butter. Tried using Season All but that had too much pepper in it and regular salt would not work. Thus Sunday’s popcorn was without seasoning. In 3 hours, we had given out 300 bags of popcorn and again, ran out. We shut down!
If you have calculated up to this point, we put popcorn in the hands of 1950 people. In doing so, we used 5 plus cases of prepackaged popcorn and another gallon of kernels. We had inquires about used eye glasses box locations, eye exams info from a school nurse, blood drive inquiries and membership discussions. Our give away was a Longaberger Americana Flower Door Basket won by Peggy Ray of Damascus.
Much appreciation goes to Lions Joy and Warren Schwab, Ray Molesworth Alice Denell, Bob Snapp, Ken Phillips, Mike Thornett, Chris Fletcher, Fran Burlas, Marcia Holpuch, Jerry Mallack, Wayne Marr, Midge Tench, Dennis Babb, Ken and Carol Cook, Partner-In-Service Jennifer Molesworth and Sue Suddath’s Grandsons. Should I have not included any Lion who helped, please forgive me and tell me so I can include you in my records. These Lions and family members clocked over 130 hours of time for this event. The cost to the Lions Club was approximately $200. “WE SERVE”

The Damascus Lions Club Foundation has Scholarships available for graduating seniors from area High Schools.

The R. Vernon Simpson Scholarships began in 2000 awarding three $500 Scholarships.  R. Vernon Simpson was Vice Principal and teacher of Damascus High School and the John T. Baker Middle School is named after his father-in-law.  Lion Ray (as we knew him in the Lions) was an energetic, creative and respected individual, whether he was at school or at the Lions or working for his church.

The R. Vernon Simpson Scholarship will be awarded to graduating seniors students of our area as selected from the applications submitted. The applications will be judged based on scholastic achievement, leadership, character, citizenship, school activities, work experience and community activities.  The student must be in the upper 50% of the class and be attending an accredited college as a full-time student.  The Board of Directors of the Damascus Lions Club will select the recipients.  The scholarships awarded are for $1000 each.  Scholarship applications are due April 15, 2011.

General Information

Appplications for the Scholarships may be obtained from this website (scroll to the bottom of this page) or may also be obtained  from Lion Mary Frances Gosnell, grangosnell1674@yahoo.com or  at  the Damascus High School Career Center.

The Damascus Lions Foundation, Damascus, Maryland announces the Vernon R. Simpson Scholarship program for the school year 2010-2011.   Scholarships in the amount of $ 1,000.00 each will be awarded in the Spring 2011.

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION (PDF)     GENERAL INFORMATION (PDF)

To be eligible for consideration, an applicant must:

1. Be a citizen of the United States.
2. Be a graduating senior in the upper 50% of the class who will attend full-time an accredited postsecondary academic institution, accredited vocational, trade or business school.
3. Not have accepted an appointment to a service academy or have received any other grants or scholarships (including ROTC awards) exceeding $5,000 (does not include Guaranteed Student Loans).

Applicants will be judged on scholastic achievement, leadership, character, citizenship, school activities, work experience, community activities. The decision of the scholarship committee will be final.

The following information must be submitted by  April 15, 2011 and mailed to:

Student Loan and Scholarship Committee, Damascus Lions Club
Lion Mary Frances Gosnell, Scholarship Chairman,
1674 Florence Road, Mount Airy, MD 21771
Yopu must include:

1. A completed Application for Scholarship Grant (download)
2. A High School Academic Transcript, including SAT and other test score results, certified by school registrar
3. Three (3) letters of reference by adults (not relatives)
4. A brief original essay by the applicant indicating their career objectives and how pursuing Higher Education is necessary in attaining those objectives.

The successful recipients of the scholarships will be announced at the Damascus Lions Youth Night and the School Awards Ceremony.
The scholarship grants will be sent to the recipient in July 2011 payable to the college or institution the recipient will be attending.

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION (PDF) GENERAL INFORMATION (PDF)