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Club Activities
Candy Days
Leawood Lions Eye Glass Collections:
The Leawood
Lions have an ongoing program with libraries to take advantage of
the convergence of television and the PC in providing ECTV readers that
scan the printed word and display the document in very large type on
a TV set. This enables people with significantly impaired vision
to keep up with news in newspapers and magazines. It’s another
effort in the Lions fight for sight. For more information,
email
secretary@leawoodlions.org
The first documented burial in the Linwood Pioneer Cemetery took
place in 1869.
Eye Glass Referral Program The Leawood Lions Club Eye Care Referral Program is designed to provide glasses for children referred by school nurses, uninsured or underinsured, adults who have lost their jobs and need glasses to find work and the elderly that need glasses that are not cared for by Medicare. The person will be
examined at the KU Medical Ophthalmology Department and the glasses
will be provided by LensCrafters. The Leawood Lions reimburses
LensCrafters. Please be prepared to provide the person's DOB, SS#,
address, phone # and if employed, their employer's name and address.
For more information or to make an appointment, call Mike Klien at
816-285-2796 or email
Vision_Testing@leawoodlions.org The Leawood Lions have
established a new scholarship program for Leawood and Overland Park residents who are
high school seniors planning to attend college the next fall. The
club awards two or three $500 scholarships based in part on the applicant’s
community service record. Here is a list of winners to date; For
application form and cover letter go to
application form and
cover letter.
Our May 13, 2008 meeting included a presentation by 6 of the new Eagle Scouts from Troop 10. Since that Troop is sponsored by the Leawood Lions Club, the Scouts who achieve Eagle are entitled to an achievement certificate from Lions Clubs International.
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Each October the Leawood Lions host a community pancake breakfast Friday
night and all day Saturday that is attended by over 1,000 people. Guests enjoy a delicious meal of pancakes,
sausages, juice and coffee. This event serves as one of the primary club
fundraisers. As with all Lion fundraisers, 100% of the proceeds go to a
special benevolence fund which allows the club to partake in many worthy
charitable endeavors throughout the year. Benevolence funds are not used
to run the day to day activities of the club.
The
Leawood Lions have participated in Candy Days for over 50 years and have
donated more than $50,000 to the Kansas Lions Sight Foundation.. 
The
Leawood Lions actively collect eye glasses to be processed and used
for the underprovided in third world countries. Lion Bill
Murfey has been collecting eye glasses since 1996 from 75
establishments in the Kansas City Metro area while driving over 400 miles per
month. His personal goal is1000 pair of eyeglasses per month which
he has exceeded in the past 3 years. 
Leawood Lions enjoy many social events
including annual Christmas and Valentine’s Day Parties. We also enjoy steak
fries and outings including T-Bones Baseball games. We encourage our wives,
and Lions International encourages, members to ask their wives to
become members of our club and help us recruit other women to join our
club.
The Linwood Pioneer Cemetery* is tucked between a branch office of
the U.S. Postal Service and
shopping center parking lot, but in the middle of the 19th century, its
setting was quite different. It is a sobering reminder of the days when
premature death was not uncommon. In the 1850s the land surrounding the
Linwood Pioneer Cemetery was part of a 200,000-acre tract that was
divided among the Shawnee Indians. Six hundred forty acres of this land,
including the land now occupied by the cemetery, became the property of
a man named Dr. Greyeyes. He later sold the portion of land on which the
cemetery lies. The new recipient, Simeon V. Peeples, donated two acres of the land for a church and
cemetery. 
About four years later, the Linwood Methodist Episcopal
Church was built next to the cemetery, where it remained for
approximately 50 years. The Linwood Pioneer Cemetery faced many
challenges over the years. In the late-19th century grave
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robbery was a problem. Two possible motives fueled the robbers'
ambition: They may have stolen jewelry and other heirlooms buried along
with the rightful owners; they also may have sold bodies to medical
schools for anatomical study. The grave robberies eventually ended, only
to be replaced with yet another challenge by the middle of the
20th century. 
Maintained for years by the Linwood Garden Club, the Linwood Pioneer
Cemetery has been cared for by the Leawood Lions Club since 1995. The
Lions repaired the brick retaining wall, painted the wrought-iron fence,
evened out the ground, planted ornamental trees, removed limbs and dead
trees, trimmed back the iris, and installed a flagpole and
American flag. The appearance now is appropriate to the residents!
