February was a busy month for the Santa Monica Pacific Palisades Lions Club as we participated in a free vision exam on February 1, held our Club Level Student Speaker Contest on February 5th, participated in the first Santa Monica Art & Literacy Festival meeting and continued our fundraising efforts and recovery planning for the Pacific Palisades.
The vision exam, held at the Westchester Senior Center, was done in partnership with California Lions Friends In Sight, LA New Millennium Lions Club and the Venice Marina LAX Lions Club. It was a busy event that started with setting up nine stations to efficiently perform a variety of eye tests to determine the attendees eye health, provide a prescription for free eyeglasses and have diabetes screening. With more than 20,000 eyeglasses to choose from, all attendees were happy and impressed with the ease and speed of the process.
The Student Speaker Contest included presentations from three Santa Monica High School students, each sharing different point of view on the topic, “Artificial Intelligence; friend or foe?” We were honored to have three judges, John Smith from KTLA, Terry Green from SMC and Matt Hall from the Santa Monica Daily Press, who also spoke to the students individually at the conclusion of the event to offer any pointers if they are eligible and want to try again next year. Our Club winner will be attending the Zone contest on March 7th. We wish him the best.
The Art & Literacy Festival will be held at Virgina Avenue Park on Saturday, April 26 from 10am – 2pm, and the theme this year is DINOSAURS! We had a great time doing craft projects with the children and are looking forward to it again this year. If you want to join us for this fun event, please let us know at smpplionsclub@gmail.com.
We are still taking tax-deductible donations through California Lions Foundation/SM-PP Lions Club - Palisades Fire Relief and donations directly to our SMPP Lions Club. For more information about donating go to our website, Facebook or Instagram. We have also been attending Pacific Palisades Community Council meetings, talking with their leadership and representatives from Traci Park’s office about how we can help support their efforts to retain their sense of community. When we have more details, we will share our plans and we hope you might join us.
If you want to learn more about Lions Club activities, or would like to hear our guest speaker, Matt Hall, Editor in Chief, Santa Monica Daily Press at our meeting on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, please contact Kingsley Fife at 310-367-2679 or smpplionsclub@gmail.com. Dinner will be catered by Teddy’s at the Elks Lodge, 1040 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica. We would enjoy meeting you.
