Support sight and hearing during White Cane Days

On Friday and Saturday, May 2 and 3, the Aberdeen Lions Club, will conduct its annual fundraiser for sight and hearing missions. We partner with the Northwest Lions Foundation who provides funding and services for Lions Clubs throughout Washington state and Northern Idaho to help them accomplish sight and hearing missions in their own communities.

The Northwest Lions Foundation assists local clubs with Project Support Care Grants, providing individuals with sight-related medical procedures and special equipment for blind children and adults in our communities who could not otherwise afford them. Lions support sight programs and services including vision screenings, eye banks, eyeglass recycling, and provide eye care service to those at risk of losing their sight.

Another program funded by White Cane donations is the Northwest Lions Foundation’s hearing program. This program provides low income individuals with hearing aids for a $50 copay with the balance of the cost being shared by the Foundation and your local Lions Club.

The Northwest Lions Foundation assisted the Aberdeen Lions Club with a Project Support Grant in 2018, awarding them with a $3,400 grant to help purchase a Vision Screening device. Our local Vision Screening Foundation (consisting of six Lions Clubs in Grays Harbor County) now has three devices to assist local school districts to meet their Washington state mandated requirement to screen the vision of each student, kindergarten through seventh grade, each year. This device will screen for six different deficiencies immediately, dramatically speeding up the process while addressing eye conditions that the previous eye chart screening would miss.

This 2024-25 school year, local Lions clubs’ volunteers screened over 11,000 individuals in approximately 55 day cares, preschools and elementary schools. These local clubs were able to offer their services and the devices at no cost to the schools or families.

We appreciate your generosity in supporting our fundraising efforts. It is truly a gift to those with vision or hearing issues and that can be helped by the Northwest Lions Foundation and a local Lions club.

Please look for Aberdeen Lions volunteers, handing out our little “White Canes” in the Aberdeen Safeway store on Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.

You are welcome to contact the Aberdeen Lions Club if you wish to know more about Lions. Lunch meetings are at noon, each Monday, except for the dinner meeting at 6 p.m. on the second Monday of the month, at the Aberdeen Log Pavilion.

Phyllis Granahan

Nancy Bryson

Co-chairs

White Cane Days

Aberdeen Lions Club

Investing in mental health saves money

Here in Grays Harbor the majority of people in our county jail have mental health or substance abuse problems.

We cannot continue to neglect this heavy burden on our local families, on our cities, and on our county justice system. In addition to properly funding county sheriff officers to cover large rural areas such as Grays Harbor County, our Legislature must invest in resolving the mental health and drug abuse epidemic in rural counties.

Jail is more expensive than treatment and assistance. Our jails are unnecessarily filled with people who need help. I appreciate our local drug court program, which is making a difference. Please invest more in community-based preventative solutions to crime such as mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, access to affordable housing and emergency financial assistance.

Preventing incarceration will cost us all less money, and less heartache.

Donna Albert

Montesano