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Billerica Lions Club

The Billerica Lions Club is the town's club of Lions Clubs International, the service association whose members work above all for the blind and visually impaired. The club was chartered on May 19, 1957, and belongs to District 33-N, a sub-district of Massachusetts Multiple District 33. In 1958 its president was Myrton Davis, and the club's scholarship at the high school was later given in memory of R. Myrton Davis. The club meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 6:00 in the evening at Stelio's, 293 Boston Road, North Billerica.

Sight has been the center of the club's work in town. When the town meeting of 1973 voted money for the Council for Aging's health clinic, it voted a smaller sum than first proposed because a podiatrist would donate his services and "the Lions Club will give tests for glaucoma." From 1989 the club gave the Billerica Public Library money every year for its Large Print collection, $500 in 1992, and then for Books on Tape; in 1994 it began a collection of Descriptive Video for the blind and visually handicapped, and in 1995 it also gave the library a personal computer. In 1996 it pledged $5,000 to the campaign for the new Billerica Public Library, as the Rotary Club did. In 2017 the director of the Council on Aging, then first vice president of the club, used the connection to find support for new glasses for local seniors. In 2019 and 2020 club members, working with the school nurse, screened the preschool children of the public schools with a spot vision screener, and the club's own account of its work counts about 500 preschool and kindergarten children screened for eye problems. It collects used eyeglasses to be sent abroad through Lions Clubs International and gives to the Massachusetts Lions Eye Foundation, the Perkins School for the Blind and the Carroll Center for the Blind, and it has sponsored a puppy at the Seeing Eye dog training school in New Jersey.

The club's scholarship for graduating seniors of Billerica Memorial High School appears in the yearbook of 1987 as the Billerica Lions Club Scholarships in memory of R. Myrton Davis and was still given in 2019 as the Billerica Lions Club, R. Myrton Davis Memorial Scholarship and in a recent year the club gave two Billerica High School students $1,000 Lions Scholarships. Its Youth Speech Competition has drawn speakers from the oratory club of Shawsheen Valley Technical High School since at least 2006, some of whom went on through the zone, district and state rounds, and from Billerica Memorial High School, which sent a speaker in 2024. Students of the Locke and Marshall Middle Schools have entered the Lions' international Peace Poster Contest, in 2013 on the theme "A vision of Peace." A Leo Club, the Lions' club for young people, was among the groups the Council on Aging worked with in 2006.

The club also runs or joins many of the town's community events. In 2006 the Middlesex Canal Museum took part in "the Lion's Club 4th of July festivities," and in 2008 and 2009 the Lions invited the Council on Aging to join the first and second annual Bake-Off at the July 4th Family Day. With the Billerica Lodge of Elks the club hosted the free Billerica Health and Wellness Fair, which drew about 1,000 residents in April 2010 and some 900 to 1,000 each spring through 2013. In 2023 the club's vice president, Gilbert Moreira, a former town moderator, told the town meeting about its carnival, held May 25 to 29 and June 1 to 4, 2023, and he spoke again in 2025 about the coming carnival by Fiesta Shows. The club's own list of its work adds the Fiesta Carnival each May, a part in the Yankee Doodle Homecoming weekend, a decorated tree for the Billerica Festival of Lights, 125 Christmas candles for the homebound seniors of the Meals on Wheels program, Salvation Army bell ringing, a fall coat drive, fleece blankets and children's books for foster care in Lowell, the laying of Christmas wreaths with the Disabled American Veterans, and support for the Council on Aging and the Billerica Community Pantry.

The Council on Aging has counted the club among its steady partners since the 2000s. The Lions helped fund its food deliveries in the spring of 2020 and its work through the following year, and in 2022 members of the club, with the club president, Joan Di'Orio, made seasonal ornaments and small gifts for more than 100 homebound seniors.

Billerica Lions Club

Billerica Lions Club

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