In an attempt to attract new younger members, the Ballard Lions club hosted a 1950’s “Mad Men” themed cocktail party Aug. 16 at a beach side property in Ballard.

Maggie Mallett, a coordinator for the Lions and member for over two years, organized the event. In a tied retro hairstyle and poodle skirt, she dressed the part for the event.

“Our goal is to get some young people involved in the club ... The lions are some of the unsung heroes in the community," she said.

After seeing membership losses of over fifty percent, the Lions club is falling in line with many community clubs across the nation by looking to a younger generation to carry the torch of community and charity.

Mallett explained the goal is finding young people who are tech savvy, well networked, and have a desire to make a difference in their community.

“The biggest part of course, is just having fun doing it and enjoying people,” Mallett said.

Although a lot of Lion’s charities focus on the developmentally disabled in hearing and sight, the Lions club is known for helping such causes as the Ballard Food Bank, Millionaires club, and projects like the Rose Garden in the Woodland Park Zoo. They are helping with future plans for a tactile sensory garden that showcases plants with features that are appealing to senses other than sight.

On September 22, Lions club members, volunteers from Seattle Pacific University and others will be expanding the rose garden by making raised beds with tactile gardens, including braille and other features for citizens with sight and mobility impairments. The goal of the extension is to build gardens for all people to enjoy.

Colleen Morgan of the Lions explained that the Lions Club acts as a funnel to service the community, and that a unique quality of the Lions club is that they have no facility and therefore no overhead, so one hundred percent of proceeds from fundraisers go directly to charities. On example of this is a crab feed happening on October 20. Morgan said the event accommodates around two hundred-twenty people and features a raffle. All proceeds of the crab feed go to Thanksgiving dinners for families in need.

“We work with selfless, generous people that work with the community ... its hard because I see less face to face, hand to hand cohesion in our community happening now for a variety of reasons, but at the same time the need is growing and growing,” Morgan said.

The “Mad Men” cocktail party accrued range of younger individuals from the community. Ballardites Christine Alar and Lafcadio Darling attended the event looking like “Don Draper” and “Jackie O.”

“We are just civically minded Ballardites here to meet other like-minded people, and have a good time too,” Alar said.

Visit http://www.lions19b.com/ballard.html for more Lions events. For questions or volunteering information for the Seattle Sensory Garden, send to info@seattlesensorygardenor.com or visit the website at http://seattlesensorygarden.com/