Together ‘we serve’ | Lions Club donates $4,000 to Ruth’s Place

Kristin Billington received a warm welcome and a symbol of kindness during the Granbury Lions Club meeting on June 20.

The new executive director of Ruth’s Place was presented with a $4,000 check from Lions Club President Stephen (Steve) Fortenberry.

“As lions, we help,” he said. “And that’s what it’s all about.”

The Granbury Lions Club (GLC) is affiliated with Lions Clubs International, the world’s largest service club organization with more than 1.4 million members in 206 countries and geographical areas, according to the GLC website.

SERVING THE COMMUNITY

Since 1961, the GLC has been helping the community with everything from scholarships to eyeglass donations.

"People donate eyeglasses and they drop them off at Walmart or the doctor's office or TSO (Texas State Optical) and we pick up the eyeglasses, we sort them, and we take them up to a recycling center in the Metroplex," Fortenberry said. “Eyeglasses go there from us and all other Lions Clubs in the state of Texas, and they do the same thing around the world."

Lions’ principal charities have benefited the blind or visually impaired ever since Helen Keller spoke at an international convention in 1925, according to the website.

In fact, the organization’s generosity concerning eyeglasses doesn’t stop there. The Lions Club also pays for eye examinations and glasses for qualified grade school students as well.

“We do a lot of things in the community to help people,” Fortenberry said. “We have a big flag program in Granbury, where we put out over 600 flags four times a year for Memorial Day, Flag Day, July 4, and Veterans Day — that's our biggest fundraiser so that we can have the money to help people in the area.”

He explained that the GLC handles six different flag routes, with each route containing anywhere from 100 to 115 flags that are placed in the ground.

Fortenberry said each year, GLC gives out several scholarships for high school graduates of Granbury, Tolar, and Lipan.

GLC members also cook and serve pancakes for various county-wide events like the Relay for Life, and the Junior Livestock Show — or even as a way to give back to community members, like first responders.

“That’s what we concentrate on here is helping the local community,” Fortenberry said.

SPEAKERS

Every month, the GLC invites guest speakers to its meetings to give an informative speech on what’s going on in the city or county.

"We get people sometimes from the hospital, we've had the mayor, we've had city managers, just somebody to come and talk to us to tell us what's going on because there may be something we might not know about, so we try to (invite) people that have knowledge of the area," Fortenberry said.

The GLC guest speaker for June was Hood County Commissioner for Precinct 2 Nannette Samuelson.

Samuelson — who is also Hood County's first female commissioner — took time to explain to members what a commissioner’s job entails: infrastructure planning, property taxes, appointing boards and committees, and elections.

She also explained the community-focused changes she’s made to board meetings over the past few months.

“On the vein of more transparency and communicating more with the public and allowing the public more access to what's going on in court, I made a motion to have public comments at every meeting instead of just once a month,” she said. “I also made a motion to change the order of the agenda, because a lot of the things that are more interesting to the public, or that people want to come and talk about, were not happening until the very end of the meeting. Having (those agenda items) earlier in the meeting makes it more available for people who work to come and spend 30 minutes at the meeting instead of four hours, so that they can get up and talk about what's (important to them).”

She said that the commissioner role also brings with it several challenges, like how to solve the county jail’s overcrowding problem, and the congestion issue that will arise once the Highway 377 expansion project begins.

Samuelson added if any individual wishes to contact her, they can go to co.hood.tx.us/ online.

“I definitely want to hear from you,” she added.

MEETINGS

The Granbury Lions Club holds its meetings at noon on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Spring Creek Barbeque, 317 E. U.S. Highway 377.

Fortenberry said there are currently 27 members, but he hopes that more young people will join the organization in the future.

"We need more young people in the Lions Club and I think most service organizations are like that,” he said. “If we can get young people, we're better off because it'll keep the service clubs going."

Although Fortenberry has only been a Lion for four years, he’s served as president of the club for the past two years — a term that will be ending in July.

"I enjoy meeting people and I enjoy helping people if I can,” he said. “The motto of the Lions Club is ‘We serve,’ and if we can serve in the community and help people, that's what I like to do."

For more information about the Granbury Lions Club, visit e-clubhouse.org/sites/granbury/index.php online.