Last year, the Ballard Lions Club provided 50 people in and around Ballard with free eye exams and eye glasses; donated audio and visual equipment to senior centers, provided two people with free cataract surgeries and gave several people hearing aids. Yet despite their valuable efforts and longstanding history in the community, the Ballard Lions worry about the local club's future.

Gerry Giraldo is the president of the Ballard Lions Club Foundation and has been a member since the 1970s. Over time he has seen the club's membership age and numbers dwindle.

"I'm one of the youngest members and I'm 73," he said, adding that the club is having a hard time reaching out to young people.

"As people get old, new members are needed to continue the work that others started," Giraldo said.

"You must care for the community you are associated with, either where you live or where you work. Besides that there is a great feeling  when we are able to help others."

Giraldo, an immigrant form Columbia, decided to join the club to give back.

"Lions are groups of service-minded men and women who are interested in doing volunteer work to improve their communities and help those that are in need," he said. "This country has been very good to me and I wanted to give something back."

Giraldo said that it was also important to him to be joining an international organization. By becoming a member he knew he would be part of a world-wide organization that's represented in 100 countries and more than one million members strong.

"I am really glad to know that anywhere in the world I can find someone with my own interest," he said.

In July, around 20,000 Lions Club members from around the world will gather in Seattle for the annual Lions Club International Convention. This is the first time the week-long convention is hosted in Seattle and the convention keynote speaker this year is Condeleezza Rice.

But before the summer's convention, the Ballard chapter is focusing on continuing its local efforts by raising awareness and gathering donations.

Next week, the Lions Club is raising awareness of sight conservation during its White Cane Days on May 6th and 7th.

The Lions have made the community's sight and hearing impaired their priority since 1925 when Helen Keller challenged the Lions to help the sight impaired, Giraldo said.

Keller challenged the Lions to foster and sponsor the work of the American Foundation for the Blind.

"Will you not help me hasten the day when there shall be no preventable blindness; no little deaf, blind child untaught; no blind man or woman unaided? I appeal to you Lions, you who have your sight, your hearing, you who are strong and brave and kind. Will you not constitute yourselves Knights of the Blind in this crusade against darkness?” said Helen Keller in the 1925 speech.

"In 1930 the Peoria Lions Club (in Illinois) introduced the idea of using the white cane with a red band as a means of assisting the blind in independent mobility," said Giraldo. "To make the American people more fully aware of the meaning of the white cane and the need for sight preservation others Lions Clubs in the country adopted these two days to raise funds for sight programs."

On May 6th and 7th, Lion members will be asking for cash donations at the entrance to the Ballard Fred Meyer store from 10:00 AM to 6:00 p.m. to benefit the Lions Eye Bank, the Lions Health Screening unit, patient care grants and project support grants.

Giraldo said donations at a different time can be sent to the Ballard Lions Foundation, PO Box 17419, Seattle WA 98127, and they are tax deductible.

To learn more about the Ballard Lions Club, please visit their website or attend a meeting. The next meeting will take place Wednesday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Lajoya Thornton Place, 450 NE 100th Street.