WORCESTER— The Worcester Lions Club celebrated a major milestone on Sunday with a brunch at the White Room, marking their triumphant re-establishment after being dissolved in 2019. The event brought together club members, supporters from Grafton, and dignitaries from District 33A, including state politicians and Worcester Mayor Joe Petty.
Roughly 75 attendees gathered to commemorate the club’s revival.
The original Worcester Lions Club was established in 1922, making it one of the first in Massachusetts and even New England. However, by 2018-2019, dwindling membership led to its dissolution.
“It shrunk down to just a few people and then kind of evaporated at that time,” said Andrew Keane, president and longtime Lions Club member. “Worcester had one of the first Lions Clubs in Massachusetts and maybe in New England.”
The desire to re-establish the club began in 2022, resulting in the formation of a new club in the same location with a similar name.
Now, the Worcester Lions Club, part of the international service organization Lions Clubs International, is focusing on addressing more directly the needs of Worcester residents.
“Lions is an international service organization, one of the biggest in the world,” said Keane, “with 1.4 million members, and there are various international goals of the organization. But specifically, the Worcester club is going to be focusing a lot on the needs of Worcester residents, and those are going to be varied.”
Every new club emerges under the sponsorship of an existing club making the Grafton Lions Club originally connected with Worcester’s. They were technically members of the Grafton Lions Club, in what was called the “Worcester Branch Club.”
“It was sort of a sub club of Grafton until we became officially chartered,” said Keane. “That official charter date for the Worcester Lions Club was April 11, when we became a club.”
Keane, who joined the Lions 20 years ago as part of the Bolton organization, has been instrumental in guiding the new Worcester club. He moved to Worcester two years ago.
“I’m helping with the whole understanding of who all these people that we need to talk to are, and the zone, the district and the international resources available to us,” said Keane. “Additionally, I’m helping our club understand the programs that are being run at the state level and at the district level. I’m trying to help our club and our club members comprehend some of that and navigate some of those waters to give us assistance and resources to help us achieve our goals.”
Lions’ member Grace O’Day explained to the Worcester Guardian that she had never been a part of something like this before, and is looking forward to exploring the possibilities.
“I don’t have any sort of past experience with service organizations, especially at this scale,” said O’Day. “So, I think the thing that I draw my excitement from in being a member is like the opportunities that exist. I grew up in Worcester. I had moved away to different suburbs for a couple of years, and now I’m a resident of the city again, and so I’m excited to be able to enrich the community that I’ve grown up in and that I love so much.”
Jillian DiBonaventura, a member of the Worcester Lions Club, explained that the club is embracing a proactive approach to get the word out there.
“We leverage social media and word of mouth,” she said. “Our whole motto is that we serve. We’ve got tons of backgrounds from some people who are retired, we have teachers, we’ve got other community members, people who work in banks, and more.”
DiBonaventura also pointed out the critical role the club can play in addressing immediate community needs, adding that sometimes “government is slow to move, so policy is slow to move.”
“I was a teacher in the Worcester public schools for 26 years before flipping to higher education at WPI to teach teachers,” she said. “So the need here is tremendous. This is where clubs such as Lions can bridge the gap. Because we’re smaller, we can just get right to the heart, get right to the need.”
Looking ahead, club members are eager to start community service projects.
“We had a lot of administrative stuff to do for a couple of months,” said Keane, “and now we need to sort of roll up our sleeves and figure out, you know, what’s, what’s a service project for us to get involved in? When we use the term service project, that could be kind of one of a couple of different things. It could be a fundraiser to try to get money to help an organization. It could be a drive to collect physical objects like, you know, food or clothing or other items that an organization or people need. Or it could be us providing physical labor to help do something, providing time to man a location, providing labor to help build or clean or repair or do something like that.”
The new Worcester Lions Club is poised to make a positive impact on the Greater Worcester community, continuing the legacy of service that began more than a century ago.
Matt Olszewski is a freelance content and news writer based in Boston, MA. In his free time, Matt enjoys running, hiking or skiing. Matt just graduated with his MPH from Tufts University. He can be reached at mattoskier@gmail.com
