Welfare
Burgess Hill District Lions Club is well known locally for the Welfare causes which we help - this is the reason that Lions Clubs exist. Some examples can be seen in the sub-menus shown if you hover over the Welfare menu item above. The picture above is of a presentation of Defibrillators to St Pauls Catholic College and Downlands School.
Another project we funded with a generous donation from Alan Shaw from Harbeth Audio was a special tricycle for handicapped children at St Paul's College. They can now join in with their peers! Photo provided courtesy of Steve Robards, Mid Sussex Times.
We also provided £3,000 towards a special bike for a severely disabled boy, helping his family raise the funds needed for this specialised item.
We also recently supported the appeal to provide the Talkabout Magazine on a memory stick for blind people as the old cassette recording equipment was very antiquated. Blind people in the area now have it sent to them on a memory stick which is much cheaper to post and easy to use these days. Above is a picture of the Celebration Lunch for 10 years of service.
Another cause was to assist "Speak Up", which is a self-advocacy group for people with learning difficulties. The group started in 2000. Their purpose is to help people with learning difficulties be more confident and help them get more involved in the local community. We provided them with the sum of £540 to cover their transport costs for a 6-month period.
We had a Zone project in the 2012-13 year to help Orchard House and raised enough to buy them a trampoline - the children were very pleased!
We were pleased to support the Mid Sussex Older People's Council tea party and get together.
All requests for support follow a set process as we are an approved Charity. We have a Welfare Committee to which all requests are submitted. For Welfare Issues, please email us via the 'Contact Us' page.
This Committee will investigate where required and make recommendations to the Club's Board and to the next Business Meeting. Club Members will then vote to accept or reject the Committee's recommendations.
We cover a wide variety of welfare areas: the young, the elderly, the sick, education and general health matters in the local area as well as supporting International projects.
As an example, we support the Burgess Hill Marching Youth and Age Concern in both Burgess Hill and Hassocks as well as helping the Hassocks Guides and 5th Burgess Hill Scouts.
We started the Burgess Hill Boys Club and are supporting the Respect Youth Club.
A local event we support is the "It's a Knockout" event run at Crawley in June for the mentally and physically handicapped. This is thoroughly enjoyed by both those who take part in it and those who organise it!
Every Christmas we support the Food Appeal for disadvantaged senior citizens and families on limited incomes in conjunction with the Burgess Hill Community Food Bank in the Spire Cafe, St. John's Church, the local radio station Bright 106.4 and the Mid Sussex Times. Over 200 Christmas hampers are packed and distributed to these local people.
