Boksburg Lions Club to close down

The Boksburg Lions’ Club has resorted to close down its Boksburg branch following years of struggling to get young people into the organisation.

According to Lion James van Heerden, who has been serving as the child welfare’s board member for the past 32 years, the branch will be closed at the end of June this year. The club has served the community of Boksburg for 50 years.

“We have decided to close the branch because we have been facing difficulties to recruit young people in the branch for years. We used to have 37 members on average, but today we are only sitting with nine members. This is because almost all our members have become very old and unable to serve in the organisation. Others have relocated to other areas,” explained van Heerden.

With the closure of the branch, the existing members are going to join nearby branches, including the Benoni branch. This means some of the club’s charity initiatives in Boksburg will cease to exist.

These projects include Operation Bright Sight initiative, which assists those who suffer from sight defect in Boksburg to obtain spectacles and regain their sight, the Lions Christmas Cake sale among other charity activities. These initiatives will, however, be carried out through the Benoni branch.

Young people can save the club
Van Heerden pointed out that the club can be saved or revived if more young people in Boksburg join the club.
Anyone interested in joining the club can contact Lion James van Heerden on 082 2917 564 or Lion Tony Norris on 082 553 1607.
Members of the organisation meet every third Thursday of the month at the old Boksburg Town Hall.

When the club was first formed in Boksburg, it served the community for about seven years before it was closed down. However, two years later, the branch was revived and continued to serve the needy for 50 years.
Its charity programmes included feeding the hungry, transporting the vulnerable to healthcare centres, organising charity fund-raisers such as the annual Golf Day, supporting other charity organisations and old-age homes, such as Cosmos, Boksburg Child Welfare, St Francis Care Centre and the Salvation Army, and played vital roles in the formation of many other charity organisations.

Lions Club is an international organisation that assists those less fortunate and was established by Melvin Jones more than a century ago in the United State of America.
By the end of 2020, it had about 1.4 million members serving under thousands of clubs in different countries across the world.

Also Read: Help those with a sight defect by ordering your Lions Christmas cakes