Lunch with Lions

Today, Jessica and I went down to the Northfield Golf Club to sit in on the local Lions Club weekly lunch meeting. Going into it I didn't really know what to expect. For some reason I had a vision in my head of people all sitting in one room just in rows of chair arranged in a block as the president stood at a podium and went over what was going on currently in the club, what was coming up in the future and reflection on recently completed projects and events.

What Jessica and I went to was kind of like that, but not really.

First off, they fed us. It was a lunch meeting catered by the golf club. Chris was right, people open up over food. Secondly, Jessica and I stood out like sore thumbs. Not were we lacking the infamous yellow vests but we pretty much the only ones under the age of 50. After the group (about 20 of 35 members were there) had time to eat and mingle they started the meeting with the pledge of allegiance, a prayer (which surprised me just because of this day and age where religion in public spaces can be quiet controversial) and songs. Yup. We sang. They had a little jingle about being members of the lions club but then they broke out these booklets of song lyrics (over 100 songs). They had everything from church hymns, to do-ray-mi and "Some where over the rainbow". After a few songs they had a couple of quick announcements (including having Jessica and I stand up and explain who we were and what we were doing) and then it was on to a presentation. The lady that presented at today's meeting just came back from serving in Romania for the Peace Corps and was sharing her experiences over there.

What was really wonderful about her presentation was the connections it had to our class. Part of the time she talked about how Romania became a democracy in 1989 and how they people there have been having a hard time making it work and how their history is working against them. She discussed how people will do things like litter because they can now, no one is telling them not to. Not only are people telling them they can't litter, but they also aren't being told to "volunteer" to clean it up like the communists did before they gained their independence. To the Romanians, volunteerism has a history that causes it to be an undesirable activity because it was forced upon them during the reign of the communists. She said democracy has had a really rough start in Romania because they don't know how to be a democratic society.

Once she was done speaking, the meeting was pretty much over. The president of the club and one other member came over to Jessica and I and sat down so we could talk. It was amazing how the two of them just kind of started talking and started discussing things Jessica and I were going to ask them about. I don't know how they did it, but they seemed to just know what kinds of things we were looking for for this project.

What struck me the most about our conversation with them was the claims they made on volunteerism in our society today. First off, they both believe that today's youth are more civically engaged than ever before. They think that "young people" are volunteering today because it has always been something that have been exposed to and involved in. They also think that the nature of volunteerism is changing into something our society has never seen before.

There is so much more I could talk about in this blog post but to do so would take wayyyy to long and would leave my group nothing left to include in our presentation.

All in all, lunch with the lions was really wonderful today and we gained a lot of insight on how the Lions Club of Northfield adds to social capitol and the strenght of our country' democratic government.