In consideration of the current health situation with COVID-19, the Santa Monica Lions will be postponing our vision and diabetes screening event that was to be held on Saturday, March 21 at Virginia Avenue Park. The Lions Eyes Across California event will be rescheduled for fall, a new date to be determined once our Lions meetings resume. We appreciate your past attendance and look forward to helping families in the future.
As I mentioned, we have also suspended our Lions meetings and are monitoring the progression of the virus. As part of our motto, We Serve, we feel we can best serve our community by following CDC guidelines and we encourage others to do the same. Besides being told to wash our hands, cover coughs and sneezes, stop touching our faces, and stay home if you are not feeling well, we are also being instructed to practice “social distancing.” While these instructions are to help you remain healthy, I think it is important to realize that social distancing is also a consideration that can directly affect others.
I work people whose immune systems are compromised because of being on dialysis or having a kidney transplant which requires taking immunosuppressant drugs. I watch them make everyday choices to limit their exposure to situations where their health is at risk and could result in a much longer recovery process along with complications the average person doesn’t experience. When you consider all transplant patients, cancer patients and survivors along with others whose medical conditions require treatment that compromises the immune system, it adds up to quite a few people of all ages. In fact, you may know someone who falls into this group.
Please remember, while these people look healthy just like you, some are only that way because of extraordinary efforts on their part. We all need to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the bank, etc., but by limiting some of our activities and chances for exposure, we are not only protecting ourselves, we are being considerate of others.
While we wait to resume our Lions meetings, hopefully in the not too distant future, we are excited to announce we will be having evening meetings for people that can’t make lunch meetings but want to serve the Santa Monica and Westside communities. Our new meeting schedule is:
Lunch meeting at 12:15 p.m. the first Thursday of each month
Dinner meeting at 6 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month
All meetings are held at the Elks Lodge on Pico Blvd. If you are interested in learning more about Lions Clubs, please contact Marilynn Schalit at marilynnschalit@yahoo.com or 310-903-8819 or Yoriko Fisher at yorikofisher@gmail.com or 443-883-1101, to learn more.
Susan DeRemer
