Lake Worth Lions Club celebrates 100 years
Centennial bash set for 2 p.m. Saturday at downtown Cultural Plaza with free blood sugar, eye and hearing tests.
The Lake Worth Lions Club will celebrate its centennial Saturday afternoon at the Cultural Plaza in downtown Lake Worth Beach. And no one is more excited than Sam Velazquez.
As the club’s passionate president, he wants the community to appreciate the hard work local Lions have done over the past 100 years to improve the lives of Lake Worth Beach residents.
“We advocate for the poor, we advocate for the sick,’’ Velazquez said. “Our members have worked tirelessly to support our community and we are both excited and humbled by the accomplishments achieved over the past century.’’
Among the many Lake Worth Lions projects since the club’s formation on April 17, 1925:
Free reading glasses to the needy.
Building a band shell at a city park at Lucerne Avenue and Dixie Highway, a bandshell later moved to Bryant Park.
Rebuilding the Lake Worth High School football field after it was destroyed by the 1928 hurricane.
Respirators for the fire department.
A drinking water fountain at the high school.
Uniforms for the high school band.
Monetary gifts to the Visiting Nurses Association
Baskets of food to needy families, not just at Thanksgiving.
One of more than 46,000 clubs in 210 countries, the Lake Worth Lions Club work continues today through partnerships with area groups to support community services — from the Guatemalan Maya Center, Lake Worth Playhouse and high school scholarships to the Braille Club, the Florida Outreach Center for the Blind and the Lions Diabetes Awareness Foundation.
In 1925, the first-year club enjoyed a charter celebration with music and dancing at the Gulfstream Hotel under the leadership of the Lake Worth Lions Club’s first president, dairyman William Boutwell.
Saturday’s centennial celebration from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. will be a bit more humble and meaningful, transforming the Cultural Plaza, across from the Lake Worth Library, into a mini clinic as much as a party.
Music by the Lake Worth High School band.
Dancing by teens from Guatemalan Maya Center.
Food and drinks.
Free blood sugar, eye and hearing screenings.
Free reading glasses will be given out to the needy.
A Lake Worth Beach person will receive the Melvin Jones Humanitarian Service Award, named after the Lions Clubs International founder.
“We want to make it more about service than entertainment,’’ said Velazquez, a Lake Worth Lion since 2017 after serving Lions Clubs in Indiantown, Fla., and Syracuse, N.Y., where he led the Spanish Action League.
“My dad was a minister. I grew up helping people in California, New York, Puerto Rico and Chicago,’’ he said.
