Elgin Lions Club, a history of charity, community, and ocular health

By Garrett Christensen on Wednesday, July 16th, 2025 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News

ELGIN – At the core of many strong communities are dedicated groups of civic volunteers, often with histories stretching back centuries. From football camp chefs to scholarship organizers, vision testers, and a plethora of other altruistic pursuits, members of Lions International have been bringing communities together for over a century. Recently, Elkhorn Media Group sat down with four members of the local Elgin Lions Club, President Patrick McDonald (Center-left), member Gerald Hopkins (Leftmost), Secretary Jared Rogers (Rightmost) and former District Governor and current local member Steve Oliver (Center-right). These four offered a unique look at Lions and what they do to serve the community on a daily basis.

For those unfamiliar, Lions International found its beginning in 1917 when the Association of Lions Clubs was formed by Chicago businessman Melvin Jones. By 1920, the association had already gone international with the establishment of a club in the Canadian border town of Windsor, and continued to expand, incorporating various missions of community service and civic support.

One of the most prominent missions of contemporary Lions Clubs, and potentially where many residents know them from, is ocular health and accessible glasses, with the Elgin club still hosting annual vision screenings at Imbler Elementary School and Stella Mayfield School. The origins of the ubiquitous screenings carry more weight to them than some may realize, as explained by Gerald Hopkins, who’s been a member of Lions International since 1963:

“In 1925, Helen Keller appeared before the National Convention and said, ‘Will you not become Knights of the Blind?’ Ever since that period of time, it has become a core of Lions International. So, throughout the nation, throughout the world, it is a mainstay or a key component of Lions International.”

The Lions never forgot this request. Recently, according to Gerald, President Norm Palmer of the Union Lions Club and his wife traveled to Tepic, Mexico with a group of Lions from around the U.S. to distribute glasses. As further explained by Gerald:

“Twenty of them went into Mexico and distributed 1,500 pairs of glasses. There were 65 of the glasses they sent back that had to be made special for members that they will send back. So you can imagine that amount going into other countries. All Lions’ Clubs collect glasses as a part of vision, and the glasses are distributed in the U.S. and throughout the world.”

Glasses collected locally, according to Pat Macdonald, are sent to Coffee Creek Institute in Portland for reconditioning and worldwide distribution.

Beyond the vision work, Elgin Lions keep busy with a variety of local projects, including:

Being the chief organizers for Riverfest (and conductors of the Duck Train)
Catering for the local eight-man football camp
Fundraising for the Elgin Fire Department’s Operation Santa
Running the weekly bingo night
Serving as ushers for the Elgin Opera House
Providing an annual scholarship for a local high school student,
Donating toward various projects, including $1,000 toward the Elgin Community Center’s roof repair, and providing $1,000 dollars to assist the city of Burns during the spring flooding crisis.

Currently, the Elgin Lions Club is working on a project to build community restrooms in Elgin. As explained by Patrick:

“One of our main big projects we’ve been working on is we’re trying to get community bathrooms in Elgin for the people traveling through. People are always looking for a place to stop, going up to Wallowa County. And then in the summer, we’ve got a lot of firefighters going through, so it’d be nice for them to have a place to stop also.”

One of the largest individual donations ever completed by the club to date was the purchase of a braille translator for a blind Imbler student. As explained by Jared:

“When he would type, it would convert it right to a Word-type document so that his assignments, when handed in, looked just like any other kid’s. It bothered him that his were always different. Even though he couldn’t really see them, he knew they were. He was a sharp boy. So that’s what he wanted, and it was like $3,300. It was one of the biggest things we’d ever done for one individual. And that kid came back a couple different times to meetings with bags of used eyeglasses that he’d gone around and collected for us. Those are the rewarding ones.”

The personal rewards, of course, go well beyond just the local work and extend into the greater organization. Lions International in its current form, is a truly global community with approximately 1.4 million members and around 46,000 clubs in 200 countries. The local clubs provide the services and pay into to International, which serves as an interconnected support network. As explained by Steve:

“Any disaster in the state, nation or world, we’re the first ones on the ground. We pay as a club; we’ll pay dues to International each month for each member. It doesn’t bother us because we know we’re getting more than that, especially if needed in a real disaster. We pay the district for support, and we donate to Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation because we get $10 for every dollar we give back.”

That same sense of charity and community is also why Elgin Lions even exist in their current form. In 1984, Jared Rogers was the final member of the original Elgin Lions Club. At one point, he was approached by members of the Island City club with a plan to relaunch the Elgin club. Recruiting 25 volunteers, the club was officially rechartered that year, allowing both men and women to join. According to Steve, Oregon also served on the forefront of Lions International officially updating its charter to allow women in 1987, recounting:

“It was a men-only club for years when it first started. A Portland club got the attorney general to join, who was a lady, and Lions International said, ‘we’re gonna pull your charter if you don’t kick her off the Lions Club. Being the attorney general and an attorney, she, well…pushed back and right after that, women were allowed to join the Lions Club.”

Serious topics aside, Lions are also about community and family, bringing together different clubs and cultures with different missions and resources under the same banner. As shown in one heartfelt example by Steve during a convention in Korea:

“You meet people from all over the world. There was a young man from Africa, and we had the same last name. He came up and he saw my name tag and his name tag had Oliver on it too.

And he says, ‘brother!’, and gave me a big hug.”

On the day to day, being part of the Lions means being involved, helping the community, and of course having fun along the way, whether it’s by charging the club president five dollars if meetings go over an hour, or sticking a fake begging sign and bucket in front of a member’s car during the Riverfest car show as a joke, among many other stories.

For anyone looking to join in some community service, and maybe a few laughs, the Elgin Lions and most local clubs are always looking for new members, especially younger members or “Leos.” As Jared put it best:

“’It’s harder and harder to find younger people willing to volunteer, but if you can just coerce them and get them involved in Lions, Stampeders, whatever it is, and they start feeling that,’ hey, I’m helping somebody here,’ that’s a feeling that’s hard to replace in other things that you just do by yourself at home.”

Anyone can join any club regardless of where they live so long as they’re willing to come to the meetings every now and then. Elgin Lions meet the second and fourth Monday of every month at 5:30 p.m. at Christian Life Center in Elgin. To join up, simply get in touch with a local Lions member or contact Patric McDonald at 541-910-0186.

Regardless of age, experience, or commute time, members of the Elgin Lions Club and Lions International are simply here to make their communities a better place and have been doing so for over a century. Be it through grand plans for disaster mitigation or small acts of charity and kindness, the Lions are seemingly always ready to serve. As best put by Gerald:

‘The idea is service. The Lions are there for service, to help others. Every dollar that we earn has to go back into the community to help others. And that’s what we’re all about.”