The Pleasant Grove Lions Club awarded its annual Humanitarian Award at a special meeting May 5, 2015. This year's recipient is Marsha Skidmore from American Fork. For 15 years, since the inception of the project, Marsha has organized a humanitarian group which meets once a week to sew quilts, little girls dresses, little boys shorts, diapers, baby nightgowns, etc. Much of the fabric is donated by individuals and local business. They collect materials to assemble school bags for children, the new-born kits, feminine hygiene kits for women, simple toys, soccer balls, etc.
All this is gathered and packed into large containers to be shipped to countries where the need is great. A professional golfers association has paid for the containers to be shipped and have done so for six years.
There are over a million orphans in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Marsha showed a video in which some of the kits were distributed and which portrayed the people happily receiving these donations. In addition, natural disasters give another opportunity to provide help. One thousand quilts were made in under two weeks to meet a challenge given by Elder Jeffrey Holland to help Chile after a disaster in that country.
This last year, over 800 school kits were assembled. Over 700 little dresses have been made so far this current year. Volunteer hours exceeded 50,000 hours. Many suitcases for missionaries have been donated. The charity organization Eyes for Zimbabwe has worked with the group to distribute needed eyeglasses. With the last shipment to that country went a great number of used eyeglasses collected by local Lions clubs. The video showed people receiving them with big smiles.
After Marsha's very interesting presentation, the Pleasant Grove Lions Club gave her the 2016 Humanitarian Award and also a box with 100 toy cars, 500 pair of used eyeglasses, and a check to help purchase supplies.
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| Loraine, Marsha, Darlene |
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| Marsha Skidmore, Pres. Darlene Seely |
We encourage community members to "like" Pleasant Grove Lions Club on their FaceBook page. We hope it will be of interest and give information about our local efforts to serve the community. We are still able to provide exams and eyeglasses for children ages 5 to 17 in need, and to help adults with exams and eyeglasses. Contact Milt at pglionsclub@gmail.com or (801) 913-2533 for information.
