The Santa Monica Pacific Palisades Lions Club’s last meeting of 2024 was filled with what it means to be a Lion, membership, helping others and community.
First, we inducted our newest member, Jessica Cunza. She heard about Lions from her family and came to just one meeting before wanting to join our club. We are excited to have her and she is jumping right in by helping decorate our 2024 Rose Parade Float. The Parade theme this year is, “Best Day Ever,” with the Lions float titled, “Celebrating a Day of Service.” A full decorating schedule that runs now through December 31st, is available online atlionsfloat.org. It is a fun activity as you get to see many of the floats from other organizations and corporations being assembled in the same location. Participation is open to the public and the application is online.
Next was our annual holiday event with the Salvation Army, with Lion Captain James bringing three of his team and the Deputy Director of Preparedness, Sandra, to join us. She did a great presentation on the many things the Salvation Army does leading up to and helping during disasters around the world. She shared that the first disaster the Salvation Army responded to was the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco and their commitment to community recovery can sometimes last for decades, as it has with 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
Cadet Zeck spoke briefly about the Army’s focus on three C’s - crisis, community and contributing. Cadet David played his guitar and led us in singing holiday songs, while the iconic red holiday bucket was passed among the members. The money raised from it will be added to our total from our bell ringing the previous Tuesday, along with any online donations that come in from those that were unable to participate in either event. We are hopeful that in the competition with the Kiwanis and Rotary, we will reign once again.
Just four days later, the SMPP Lions held their annual Holiday Party in Marina del Rey at Tony P’s Dockside Grill with a delicious buffet, games and our annual white elephant gift exchange. This seemed to be the year of the blanket as there were five exchanged this year.
The SMPP Lions in are starting 2025 with our Community Recognition Lunch, honoring Sharon Kilbride from the Pacific Palisades and Eula Fritz from Santa Monica (2/22/25), a Lions Westchester Eye Screening with the Venice Marina LAX Lions and LA New Millennium Lions (2/1/25), and our annual student speaker contest with topic of “Artificial Intelligence; friend or foe?” (2.5.25). This contest is open to all high school students with $21,500 for the student that wins all five levels of the contest. It will be a busy February! For more information, please contact us at smpplionsclub@gmail.com.
If you want to participate in any of these activities, or might be interested in being our guest at dinner meeting January 8, 2025 at the Elks Lodge, please contact Kingsley Fife at 310-454-2960 or smpplionsclub@gmail.com. We would enjoy meeting you.
