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De Anza Lions Celebrate Christmas

On Dec 8th, Lion Ray and his wife Barbara once again opened their beautifully decorated home to welcome current and future lions with partners and kids, about 50 adults and 10 kids all told. Newcomers and potential members were brought in by Lion Liang, with our new Vice Mayor and Cupertino City council member, Mayor Darcy Paul, and Jon Willy (new city council) and several other Cupertino citizens offering to help with the next bike ride. Lion Muni took pictures of the new group, who all received membership forms.
The food was plentiful, with everything from meatballs to Mac & cheese to salads and a whole bunch of desserts. Lion Steve donated the wine while the club provided beer, water, soda and juice for the kids. Lion Carl brought a specialty cocktail of fruit with Bourbon Plus. It was a big hit.
Music sheets were passed out to all for the Christmas Carol Sing-Along with “The Blue Bells”, consisting of Lions Eli, Scott, Carl and Kent as well as little Eli and Lion Jenni.
A good time was had by all.
We thank the Lancons for organizing the party and for all contributions large and small, verbal and musical
Contributed by Lion Ray
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2018 Thanksgiving Food Drive – New Record Donations!

Over the pre-Thanksgiving weekend of Nov 17 – 19, the De Anza Lions once again came together with family and friends to participate in the annual food drive. Lions Jen and Claire were the main organizers, with many Lions, too many to mention individually, fulfilling major roles on all 3 days. As last year, food items were collected on Saturday and Sunday in front of 3 grocery stores in the communities, including Santa Clara, Los Gatos and San Jose, with Lion Jen monitoring the receipts at the Odd Fellows Hall so the donating people could be steered towards the items that were missing for a full list of both food baskets. Despite the unhealthy air due to massive wild fires helpers came out on both days! THANK YOU!

The distribution and delivery on Monday morning was done in record time, this year for 173 families who will now not only enjoy a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal, but will have food for the remainder of this week and beyond!

Many thanks to all participants and donors, Lions, Leos, Family and friends, as well as the Odd Fellows for letting us rent out their hall – and our gratitude to the stores, Lucky’s and Lunardi’s, for participating in our event!

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Fun and Awards at the Tail-Twister Party

This club event took place on September 15th and was hosted at Leslye Noone’s home. Lion Leslye Noone accepted the Melvin Jones award for our late Lion John Noone – the award had been ordered prior to his passing.
Lions Al  and Eli both received a Melvin Jones Progressive Award which was a huge surprise to them.
Lion Carl cooked Tri-Tip in the Lions’ 55 gal BBQ cooker while the club supplied beer and soft drinks and Lion Steve donated the wine.
Everyone brought side dishes and desserts to share. A good time was had by all.
Contributed by Lion Ray
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Installation of Officers for Lion Year 2018 – 2019

During the monthly “PM” meeting Lion Prez Jeff requested a moment of silence in respect of those club relatives recently passed, and in support of the Noone and Knox families.
A warm welcome was extended to Distinguished Guest: Lion John Smith from Lions Club Chapter 4-C2 in the North Bay and Ms. Minh Ngo, Executive Director of My Red Shoes
Installation of Officers, Guest Lion John Smith presiding
President:                  Lion Jeff
1st Vice Pres              Lion Charles, in absentia
2nd Vice Pres            Lion Ray
Secretary                   Lion Jill, in absentia
Treasurer                  Lion VJ, in absentia
Directors:                  Lions Claire and Carl
Membershp chair    vacant
LCIF Rep.                  vacant
The absent officers were represented by their photos, with stand-ins for the oaths.
All accepted the responsibilities of their roles as read by Lion John. It should be noted that Lion John Smith went to great trouble to bring important and useful tools to help the officers; for example – two long horns for Lion Carl, our club tail twister and lion tamer, to use to generate enthusiasm at club events, and a heavy rubber mallet for Pres, Lion Jeff to keep order, and to put square pegs in round holes as needed.

Lion Claire presented Ms Ngo with a check in the amount of $ 1,500.

Contributed by Lion Andrea

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The Lions Love “Project LINUS”

It was the De Anza Lions’ Blanketeering Night #9 and it was a happy success. The sense of community service, fun and even a little competitive spirit was in the air. We started the evening as Leslye read a little bit about Project Linus to the group, including its Mission Statement, simply stated: to provide comfort to children in need and to provide the volunteers a rewarding opportunity for the benefit of children. With that in mind, the group launched in and fulfilled the mission of the evening, completing 53 blankets in about 2 hours.

We were lucky enough to have Lions and their better halves in attendance along with other relatives, community members, Leos and Girl Scouts with some of their family members. In total there were 18 adults, 2 teens and 10 children participating. Some blanketeers chose to trim, cut and tie their blankets all on their own while others took advantage of the little ones on hand and called for their nimble-fingered assistance when it was time to tie knots. The competition seemed to pick up as each cowbell sounded signaling that another completed “blankie” had just been added to the stacks. The young-uns seemed to ramp up their tying speed in order to be the next one to ring the bell. The oldies-but-goodies did get into the spirit of the evening, however, as they too took pride in scooting up front to ring their own chimes.

Yes, it was spirited and light-hearted and important work we participated in that Blanketeering Night #9. The children learned a little bit more about sharing and caring while the adults (who are just big children at heart) did the same, satisfied that they did indeed experience a rewarding opportunity for the benefits of children in need and proud to have been a part of this bit of community service provided by the work done by our own De Anza Lions.

Contributed by Leslye Noone

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Charter Night – 49th Club Anniversary

A big shout out to our club!

Our 49th annual charter night was one on the best I have attended. Thanks to Lions Eli and Jill, the program was funny, poignant and makes us all proud to be Lions.
Lion Jeff’s 10 reasons to be a Lion were on the mark…

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A Special Melvin Jones Presentation

Lions Eli and Mort presented the award to Lion Howie on Sun. 5/7, @ Kimberly’s Elder Kare facility in San Jose.  Lion Prez Jeff was the presenter. Other lions present were Scott L. Jill, Carl and Jenni, Relatives present were Susan L, (daughter-in-law), Sydnie, Eli, Lucia, Levi, & Anna, (grandchildren).

It was an emotionally charged event, with Lion Howie & Kathy sitting together outside on the patio.  As with all awarded Melvin Jones Awards, Lion Howie was deeply moved and very appreciative of the honor.

Contributed by Lion Mort

Lion Al at the District 4-C6 Convention – May 3 -7, 2017

This year’s theme was “Pirates of the Pacific”. As in so many years before Lion Al and his wife Barbara volunteered to attend in order to cast the votes for our Cupertino De Anza Lions Club.

The convention was held at “The Historic Santa Maria Inn” in Santa Maria – incidentally that building also celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, like the Lions Clubs International.

Just reading the program for the 4 day event was mind-boggling, a great mixture of official presentations, classes and informational sessions on one hand, and an enjoyable array of fun, games and dinners on the other.

Lion Al reported back that it was “probably one of the best conventions he ever attended’ and he and Barbara greatly enjoyed the camaraderie and fellowship of the district lions. After casting the vote on Saturday morning, he and Barb made their way back to Campbell – all of 210 miles.

PS: Lion Bob Stewart will be the next District Governor.

Contributed by Lion Al

Pull Tabs – An Untold Success Story

Once in a while, but more often than you think, a plastic bag with metal pull tabs from soda and beer cans is silently handed over to our Lion Phil, who has been keeping tabs (no pun intended)  for countless of these bags in the past years. The pull tabs are made from a special metal which recycling companies are keen on buying.

Lion Phil will acrimoniously weigh those pull tabs and sooner or later will hand them over in a huge carton to Lion Ray or Lion Steve who will take them to a Lions cabinet meeting.

There the total weight of tabs will be entered into the district contest and the winning club will get a big round of applause.

But this is not all:

Those pull tabs (or pop tabs, as they are sometimes called) will be donated to the Ronald McDonald house where they are once again consolidated and sold to Advantage Metal, a local recycling company, who – in addition to buying the precious metal – makes additional charitable donations. Last year this program brought in $ 20,000 for the RMD house, according to their website!

Of course we are not the sole contributors to this program, but our collections amounted to 47.4 pounds in 2015 and to 20.4 pounds in 2016.

Let’s be proud of our contribution to this worthwhile cause, spearheaded by Lion Phil and remember to collect pull tabs when you can!

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De Anza Lions Love Project Linus

The De Anza Lions Club held our 7th Project Linus Blanketeering event on February 2, 2017. Although there was a small turnout, we certainly had a successful evening! We not only welcomed our own Club members at the Odd Fellows Hall, but visiting community members who saw this event listed on our online calendar met us there, as well. To top that off, Lion Claire invited members of her Brownie Troop to attend and several were able join us. We were happy to say “welcome back” to the San Jose Project Linus (PL) Chapter Coordinator Sharon Lee. Sharon brought a great PowerPoint presentation with her and was able to educate the attendees about PL’s history and its success and to show us several examples of blankets that have been made and donated for the children. Since they were young-uns, Sharon suggested that the Brownies help us by tying knots instead of cutting and tying. And help us they did: whenever someone completed their cutting, they called out to the group that a blanket was ready for tying and those little Brownies would flock to that table and voila the blanket was done in what seemed mere moments!! It was amazing and all who were involved felt the sense of working together as a real team. Everyone found this experience quite rewarding and it made us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We began at 6:30 and by 9:00 nearly 50 blankets had been made; our members took many others home to complete. Including the two weeks following the event, we have made and donated 78 blankets!! They will be distributed to local children-in-need at the end of February.

We hope many more of you can come join us at our next Blanketeering party in about six months. Watch this website for updates! For more information about Project Linus, please go to www.projectlinus.org. Thank you for your interest in our community!

Contributed by Lion Leslye Noone