For over 50 years the Oxnard Noontimers Lions Club has been working to prevent blindness as well as sustaining other charities in Oxnard and Ventura County.
After being challenged by Helen Keller at the 1925 convention to become "Knights of the Blind" Lions International has focused on sight and hearing issues. Naturally, we work in other areas, but sight and hearing is our number one priority. Our club contributes to:
Every September or October we participate with the Sathya Sai Baba Organization in a Health Fair screening at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Oxnard. Sai Baba arranges for about a dozen health care organizations to provide cardiac, mammograms, prostate cancer, dental health, blood analysis and vision screening. The Lions run the vision screening portion of the screening, with our club, Oxnard Noontimers, organizing the various Lions organizations participating. Most years we screen about 500 people, fit 400 pairs of glasses and uncover several suspected cases of glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa and other serious vision issues. These we send on to Lions health organizations for follow-up.
Because Lions Clubs is the largest service club in the world with over 1.4 million members in 208 countries and territories, we have manpower on-the-spot almost anywhere disaster strikes.
Lions Club International Foundation (LCIF) is our International arm. We have projects to try to wipe out river blindness in partnership with Merck & Co., measles in the third world, in partnership with the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as disaster relief for international catastrophes. LCIF maintains a partial list of current projects here.
The Financial Times (London) ranks LCIF as the world's top-rated Non-Government Organization (NGO). We are more efficient than other organizations and deliver better bang for your donation buck.