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SHANKARA SRIKANTAN WINS LOCAL COMPETITION IN DeANZA LION’S STUDENT SPEAKER CONTEST 2016

Cupertino, February 4, 2016 – Shankara Srikantan, a junior at Cupertino High School, was awarded first place at Cupertino DeAnza Lion’s Club, 2016 Student Speaker Contest on Feb 4, 2016.

Shankara Srikantan was one of 3 high school students participating from the Fremont Union High School District who took part in the event held at the Odd Fellows Hall in Cupertino. The topic was “Liberty and Justice for All – What Does it Mean to You?”

The other finalists were Grace Zhou from Monta Vista, and Milo Forbes from Homestead High School.
This is the 79th year that the Lion’s Student Speaker Contest has been held.

By winning Shankara Srikantan will advance to the Zone level competition. The Zone contest will be held on Monday March 14th, at 6:30pm at the County of Santa Clara Registrar of Voters (ROV) Berger Auditorium , 1555 Berger Drive, San Jose, CA 95112

Lions co-Chair, Walt Strach, noted that the winner at each level can advance through Region, District, Area, and the Final Contests. This year the final contest will be held in Redding. The Grand Winner will be awarded a $10,000 scholarship although accumulated winnings at each level will be $20,000 in scholarships and $500 cash.

Lions Club International is the world’s largest service club organization with more than 1.35 million members in more than 200 countries and geographic areas around the world. Since 1917, Lions clubs have aided the blind and visually impaired and made a strong commitment to community service and serving youth throughout the world.

Picture: Student Speaker winner Shankara Srikantan from Cupertino High School with Cupertino DeAnza Lions contest co-Chair Walt Strach.

2015 Thanksgiving Food Drive the BEST EVER

And this recap from one of our event key organizers: “Thank you Lions!
It was a great day for the De Anza Lions as we delivered food to over 160 families in our community.”

With Lions and friends of Lions volunteering on Saturday, Sunday and very early Monday morning (Nov 21, 22, and 23) our sweat equity and the generosity of the community paid big dividends.

A special shout out to Lions Dan & Yvonne Fimby and their Car Club and Lion John Noone for organizing the event.

It makes me proud to be a Lion.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

By DeAnza Lions Club President Jeff Ludlum

Monta Vista LEO Club Update

The new officers and members of the Monta Vista Leo Club were officially installed in a ceremony held Nov. 15, 2015 at Cupertino’s Jollyman Park. Lions Steve Ratner and Leo Advisor Kent Vincent presided and did the honors. Lion Walt Strach and Ellen Ratner were in attendance. Leo President Katie Chen was inducted to her second term.

Contributed by Lion Kent Vincent

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Health Screening with AJRobinson Screening Unit at Cupertino Fall Festival

The “Cupertino Fall Festival” is organized by the Cupertino Rotary Club in conjunction with the City of Cupertino and sponsors.

During this year’s event, which took place on September 12th from 10am to 5pm,  our De Anza Lions club volunteered together with LEOs to man the AJ Robinson Screening Unit, which is financially supported by Lions district 4C6 with club donations.

It consists of

1) A machine that checks weight, height, BMI and blood pressure and prints out a record that we give to each person.

2) Spot Cameras (cost $7,000 each) that check for vision; we print out a record only for folks that we recommend to see an eye doctor.

3) Hearing test machine  – where we administer a hearing test and provide a paper record for the folks taking the test.

4) Registered nurses (volunteers) who provide a blood test for diabetes. The test is only screening and if needed we recommend seeing a doctor.

The Van drew a good crowd and we screened about 100 folks.

It was a high visibility event for our club and hopefully we may get some new members. The majority of the folks were of Chinese descent and the Monta Vista LEOs were very helpful as interpreters for both Chinese and South East Asian elderly participants.

A big THANK YOU goes to all volunteers, lions and LEOs alike, who contributed to the success of the event, as well as Lion Ray who spent many hours organizing it.

Contributed by Lion Ray and Lion Dagi, pictures by Lion Prez Jeff

Blanketeering Night 2015

About twenty of us turned out for the De Anza Lions’ 5th Annual Blanketeering night on March 5th. We had Lions, Leos, friends and family attend. Everyone pitched in, enjoyed an evening of warm and friendly companionship, and got some wonderful work done. There were fewer of us this year — a good number fewer, in fact — and fifteen more “pieces of fleeces” to complete so we knew we had to step it up if we were going to complete our task at hand. And we did, no problem! Blanketeers completed 63 blankets in about 2 1/2 hours and then four Blanketeers  volunteered to take the remaining twelve fleeces home to complete by the following a.m. meeting! That is the dedication I have grown to accept and expect from our Lion family. No one ever says, “no, it can’t be done”; it is always, “let’s get this done!” And it just happens. Lions serve.

Two volunteers from the San Jose Chapter of Project Linus, Barbara and Linda, joined us for the evening bringing their tools of the trade with them — scissors, tape measures, rulers, labels, instructions and stories. I know many of you still wonder what Project is or is all about.  You can go to projectlinus.org to learn what it is. Barbara told us a story, revealing what it is about. My synopsis of her story goes like this: Usually Project Linus volunteers aren’t lucky enough to hand out the blankets to the children in need of them; the head of the agency or the head nurse on the floor gets to do that job. But this volunteer was lucky and was at a site when they began giving the blankets out to the children. During that time, one wide-eyed little girl of about 5 years of age wrapped in her blanket stepped up to the Blanketeer. “Are you the Blanket Lady?” she asked. “Yes, I am,” came my reply. “I am so glad you are here. I got my blanket yesterday and I haven’t been warm and cozy for so long. Thank you.” That’s what Project Linus is all about and that is why I am proud to say that De Anza Lions love Project Linus.

~~respectfully submitted, by Lion Leslye Noone

GRACE ZHOU WINS LOCAL COMPETITION IN DeANZA LIONS’ STUDENT SPEAKER CONTEST

Cupertino, February 6, 2015 – Grace Zhou, a student at Monta Vista High School, was awarded first place at DeAnza Lions’ Club 2015 Student Speaker Contest.

Ms. Zhou was one of 5 high school students participating from the Fremont Union High School District who took part in the event held at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos. The topic was “Water Conservation – How do we Reduce, Recycle, and Reclaim.”

The other finalists were Jimmy Zhi from Lynbrook High School, Habiba Sallam from Cupertino High School, and Edward Li and Jacob Jiao from Homestead High School.

This has been the 78th year that the Lions’ Student Speaker Contest has been held.

By winning, Grace Zhou will advance to the Zone level competition scheduled for March 9th, to be held at the Lions Lodge in Los Gatos.

According to the Lions Club Treasurer, Al Knox, the winner at each level can advance through Region, District, Area, and the Final Contest. This year the final contest will be held in San Jose. The Grand Winner will be awarded a $10,000 scholarship although accumulated winnings at each level will total closer to $20,000.

PS: Picture 1: Student Speaker winner Grace Zhou from Monta Vista High School with Speaker Chair Lion Walt Strach. Picture 2: from left to right, finalists Jacob Jiao Homestead High and Jimmy Zhi Lynbrook, Picture 3: Finalist Habiba Sallam Cupertino High, winner Grace Zhou Monta Vista, and finalist Edward Li Homestead High. Picture 4:  the Judges, Jerra, Cris, Sandy, and Larry.

Contributed by Lion Walt Strach

Topping 100 LEOs at Monta Vista

On Sunday October 19th, the Monta Vista Leo Club held an outdoor ceremony at Jollyman Park in Cupertino in which the new officers and 29 new members were inducted by De Anza Lions President Jeff Ludlum. The induction ceremony followed an afternoon of LEOs bonding.

Lion Kent, our coordinator between Monta Vista HS and the De Anza Lions, welcomed the new members to LCI and Lionism, and encouraged them to share the Lions’ motto “We Serve”. He also pointed out how to earn “LCI Young Leaders in Service” awards to bolster their college applications.

Five De Anza Lions attended the event.

Contributed by Lion Dagi

A Perfect Combination

In the interest of one of the club’s most important projects, the “OneSight” program, it had been decided to combine a variety of other events with a fundraising effort. The result was a tail-twister party with an early Halloween theme, including the induction of the new officers by the district governor Karen Fillmore, the presentation of awards, and some fun for the kids, all surrounded by potluck goodies, various drinks and tri-tip, expertly bbq’d by Lions Eli and Jim.

Approximately 45 individuals, including 8 kids, joined in the action in mid-October, which was staged in a festively decorated Odd Fellows Hall.

After a good Happy Hour of mingling and chatting, the Lion District Governor took the floor to commend the club on recent accomplishments and proceeded to induce the officers for the Lion year 2014 – 2015. Lion Eli got a hearty handshake for his 40 years of membership in the club. Lions Mary, Anne and Walt were awarded the Life Member Award of the Blind center, while Lion Carl was installed as the pm tailtwister.

The generously stocked buffet was a great hit, and afterwards most attendees needed a little break during which the kids were drawing raffle prizes which were generously donated by Lions Yvonne and Dan Fimby. The specially organized DJ, whose music was playing rather softly in the background for most of the afternoon, now increased the volume slightly for the kids who enjoyed the final dances.

Thanks are in order to the organizers and all attendees for making this another successful social event and for bringing scrumptious foods to share. Many thanks also to Lions Eli and Jim, who spent a lot of time standing by the BBQ, watching the tri-tip get ready.

Thanks to Lion DG Karen Fillmore (suitably dressed as a cat) for officiating the inductions and presenting the awards.

Last but not least – we are grateful to the Odd Fellows for letting the club use their hall.

The event netted approximately $ 500.00 for the OneSight program – thanks for all the donations!

Flag Days 2014

As in previous years, the DeAnza Flag Team under the leadership of Lion Mort had several very successful presentations during spring time at 3 local schools. The first event was held in February at Sutter Elementary (Santa Clara) where 90 3rd graders were present. The second show was put on in March at Trace Elementary School (San Jose) for another approximately 150 young students.

The last presentation took place on May 23rd at the Hughes Elementary School library (Santa Clara), attended by some 90 students. Lion Yvonne distributed goodie bags, and the students enjoyed a BBQ at the Fairway Glen Park, where hot dogs, lemonade and chips were served

Major thanks go to the Flag team members (Lions Mort, Anne, Yvonne, & Walt, as well as Lions Leslye and Linda). The kids had a ball and learned lots of flag facts, too!  Many thanks go also to the crew at the park who cooked and helped organize. “I feel blessed to have a club that takes such great care of our Hughes community. It was AWESOME”, says Lion Jenni, a teacher at Hughes. One little boy asked how he could become a Lion – “Can’t beat that!” commented Lion Mort

A total of almost 350 students participated in this fun and educational learning experience thanks to DeAnza Lions.

Contributed by Lion Mort

2014 May FlagDayHughes (640x478)

Camp Via West – Annual Spruce Up

Over the last weekend in May, DeAnza Lions Bill, Ron, Charlie, Herb, Steve, Walt and Ray power washed and painted the BBQ Pit area, fire circle benches and tables, and amphitheater benches at the camp. They also repaired the roof over the BBQ pit.

After painting was finished on Monday June 2, Lion Bill presented a check for $2,700. to Rick, the manager of the campus. These funds will be used to help pay for camperships for eight disabled kids who could not afford to attend camp with the one-on-one care they require.

This is another example of our sweat equity and charitable funds in action.

Thanks to everyone in the club.
Contributed by Lion Ray Lancon2014 052914 CampVia