Next Meeting - Tuesday, October 1, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. At the Vintage Brewing Company, at 674 Whitney Way across from Westgate. Our Fall Social, in the John Wayne Room, fellers and gals, with cash bar, food, trivia contest (winners get free drinks) and awards. Come, and bring your spouse, friend, significant other, prospective member, whoever. But COME! No formalities, other than the awards, some of which should be in quotes. This is our chance to socialize with our Lion friends, unimpeded by structure, awkward table arrangements and relatively short time periods. It would be great to have everybody there.

Our Holiday Treat Sale is underway! Order blanks are out, and LINDA (who is keeping this fundraiser afloat almost singlehandedly) needs your order soon, in order to get the stuff here in time to deliver before the holidays. There's an order form on the website, and forms will be available (the only “business” aspect) at the Social next Tuesday, so figure out how much you need and turn in the order. There are the usual nuts, trail mix, malted milk balls, and, oh yes, THE FRUITCAKES. Low humor aside, these fruitcakes are really good to eat!

At our last meeting, Pres. LINDA opened the meeting, with a long list of Lion service projects in place of the Pledge, and a suggested “reflection” instead of an Invocation. No song, either, so no one was observed running from adjacent rooms with their hands over their ears. Otherwise, the meeting proceeded as usual, to borrow a phrase from Prince Charles, “whatever that is.”

The All-City Service Club Luncheon is Wed. Oct 9. Speaker is from the Badger Honor Flight, which has proven to be a big success, and the cost is $25. Don't know who has the tickets, but I bet LINDA would know.

MIKE KNOWLTON reminded us of the North/Eastside Senior Coalition fundraiser this Saturday at Warner Park. He needed some help with that - hopefully he got some.

JACK HEIM spoke of the Trivia Run, at 10:30 AM on Saturday, Oct. 5, starting at the Vintage and proceeding in the UW Research Park. It's a fundraiser for vision research, and last we knew he needed some workers for that one too.

Our present table setup for meetings is 3-4 seats at each of 5-6 tables, oriented toward the speaker's stand. Alternate possibilities are a large square setup, seats facing inward, or fewer tables with more seats at each. If you have a preference, or a different suggestion, let one of the officers know.

Our speakers were Andy Czerkas and Betsy Ezell, from the River Food Pantry. They are located at 2201 Darwin Rd. in Madison, very close to the Lions Eye Bank. It started with monthly dinners based at “City Church” and has grown to a food and clothing provider open 4 times a week for 1 ½ hours each. Two of these periods include a free hot meal. They had discovered a need for a food pantry in their neighborhood, and they now assist 600 families a week, with about 30,000 pounds of food. About 1/3 of their clients are employed, 1/3 unemployed and ½ retired, disabled, veterans and others in need of help. There are many families whose income will just not cover everything - shelter, transport, clothing, medical attention, prescriptions and food - and the Pantry helps them to avoid some really hard choices. A large part of those assisted are children. (Editorial Comment - the present economy provides jobs in retail, fast food, co-ops and other small-scale operations, but they don't and can't pay anywhere near what a worker in a large scale manufacturing plant used to make, so families can be fully employed but still not make ends meet.) The speaker said that the average annual income in the neighborhood they serve is about $11,000. Regardless of the exactitude of that figure, it doesn't go very far.

Like all service organizations, they can use help - donations, in kind or in dollars, and volunteers. If you are interested they have donation hours on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, or you can reach them at riverfoodpantry.org.