'Not your grandfather's Lions Club,' says president in Seattle for convention

Lions Clubs International President Sid Scruggs III says he is bringing good news to his fellow club members who are gathering in Seattle this week for their 94th international convention.

At a time when service clubs are struggling to maintain membership, the Lions have expanded their numbers for a fourth consecutive year, Scruggs said in an interview Friday.

That growth has occurred primarily abroad, after a period of membership stagnation at home, Scruggs said.

Lions Clubs are also continuing to broaden the scope of their projects, Scruggs said, pointing to a Lions International Clubs Foundation partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to vaccinate African children against measles.

The partnership has vaccinated 17 million children since October in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Nigeria and Mali to prevent the potentially deadly and blindness-causing disease, according to Lions International. Gates Foundation Co-Chairman Bill Gates Sr. will address the convention Thursday.

Scruggs, 71, of North Carolina, who flew close-air-support missions as a Navy pilot in Vietnam before starting a 30-year career as a commercial-airline pilot, will step down as Lions president Friday, when Wing-Kun Tam of Hong Kong takes the reins.

The convention, which runs from Monday through Friday, is expected to bring as many as 20,000 Lions members and their families to Seattle. About 12,000 members will march from Seattle Center to downtown starting at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

While "Lionism" has spread across much of the globe — India has the second-largest number of members, 200,000 — the U.S.-born movement hit hard times in its home country as many longtime members died and baby boomers failed to take their places, Scruggs said.

"Our clubs stagnated and people thought we were an old man's organization. Now we're reaching out to the younger generation and we're seeing a resurgence of young people coming in," he said.

Lions Clubs have been reinventing themselves, first by opening their doors to women in 1987 and more recently by promoting Leo Clubs for young people and Lions Clubs that welcome entire families as members.

"We are not your grandfather's Lions Club," Scruggs said.

The clubs have also broadened their mission beyond the longtime focus on addressing blindness and eye health, a focus that began with Helen Keller's challenge to the clubs at their international convention in 1925: "Will you not constitute yourselves Knights of the Blind in this crusade against darkness?"

Lions International claims its efforts since then have restored sight to 30 million people and improved vision for 100 million others.

The clubs still give a high priority to vision-related projects such as collecting used eyeglasses, but are also working to expand programs that help youths in poverty, fight hunger and protect the environment. That results in programs like the Lions-Measles Initiative and Project New Hope, which takes soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord and other military bases on retreats with their families after the soldiers return from war.

Scruggs doesn't like to use the traditional LIONS acronym of "Liberty, Intelligence, Our Nation's Safety" — "That was a World War I slogan," he said.

He prefers to translate LIONS as "Loving Individuals Offering Needed Service."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com