The Natchez Lions Club will be sponsoring the Natchez Territorial Fair today through Saturday to help fund scholarships to local high school seniors, and help support the youth baseball each summer in Natchez.

Throughout the year, the Natchez Lions Club also helps purchase new eyeglasses or hearing aids for those in need in our community.

Besides local projects by the Natchez Lions, we support Lions of Mississippi programs.

The Natchez Lions enabled a person to receive a cochlear implant. Hearing aids are collected throughout the year, also. They are recycled and given to the less fortunate in undeveloped countries.

Since the organization of the Natchez Lions Club in 1942, we have offered residents the opportunity to give back something to our community. During these 66 years our faces and the Lions projects may have changed to meet new needs and greater demands, but our mission has never fluctuated. We serve.

More than ever, those in our community with vision problems, hearing impairment, and other disabilities need our help.

To continue helping the unfortunate we need your help. Attend the Natchez Lions Club Territorial Fair at Liberty Park fairgrounds.

Bring your family and enjoy the rides, games and food. The Lions will be wearing their golf vests working to raise funds for a child who needs glasses, helping a grandmother in need of a hearing aid or giving a blind man a second chance to see by a sight saving operation.

The Mississippi Lions were the first to react during Hurricane Katrina. The Natchez Lions Club was the first club to contribute $1,000 to help buy supplies for the Gulf Coast when Katrina came ashore. Following the hurricane, the Lions Club International Foundation designated $5 million in funding to purchase school uniforms and buses, rebuild eye care centers, youth camps, volunteer fire departments and enable Lions to serve others in their communities.

The Mississippi Lions Eye Bank is the premier project of the Lions Club of the State of Mississippi. The Mississippi Lions Eye Bank was founded in 1971. Its mission is recovery and distribution of corneal tissue for transplant and/or research. The late Dr. Avery McKinley, a member of the Natchez Lions, was instrumental in establishing the Lions Eye Bank.

We are sponsoring the Natchez Territorial Fair because we believe in the value of giving back to our community. The miracles of our services enable more people to have a more flourishing and cheerful lives.

In the month of May, which is Lions Recycle for Sight Month, we embark on a collection campaign for used eyeglasses. If you have any to donate, they may be given to any member of the Natchez Lions Club. They are collected throughout the year. By your donating, you could help change the life of someone by restoring their sight.

The common ideals that exist among more than one-and-a-half million Lions is why for more than eight decades Lions have accomplished so much for humanity. This is why we shall intensify the meaning of our motto “We serve” into the next century.

This week look for the Natchez Lions Club members, wearing yellow vests, at the Natchez Lions Club Concession stand at the Territorial Fair at Liberty Park in Natchez.

Pete Smith is past district governor of Mississippi Lions and is a member of the Natchez Lions Club.