Citing declining, aging membership, another local service club disbands
YORKTOWN, Ind. — After 68 years, the Yorktown Lions Club, now down to five members, is suspending operations.
Ironically, given that single-digit membership total, the local service club isn't alone in its decision.
Yorktown is just the latest among local Lions Clubs to disband in recent years, after decades of community service and camaraderie. Service clubs nationwide have reported an increased struggle to attract new members, particularly younger ones, in recent decades.
That's very much the case for the Yorktown Lions Club. Larry Decker, the current president, said at 75 years old he's the youngest member. For a while, the Yorktown club had an influx of younger members, but family activities tended to win out over club involvement, Decker said.
In its heyday, the club's programs included collecting eyeglasses and raising funds for cancer research and leader dogs for blind people, Decker said.
Even when its membership was greater than the current figure, the Yorktown club already was citing concerns about declining numbers; a 2005 article in The Star Press noted membership by then was down to about 65 people, only 10 of whom regularly attended meetings and the majority of whom were in their 70s or 80s. As a result, the club's traditional Buck Creek Festival had been called off for the first time in many years, and its 16-acre property and clubhouse had been put up for sale.
The same issues — and sometimes the same result — have occurred for other Lions Clubs in the area and nationwide.
'We have just run out of people'
An article from Lion Magazine dated July 2020 stated that Lions Club membership was strong before the 1980s, but the past 40 years have seen "a steady decline in North American membership" for reasons such as lifestyle changes and levels of community involvement.
The Daleville Lions Club disbanded in 2014, and donated its land and buildings to the town. An article at the time quoted club member David Parkison saying, “Joining clubs like that is just not what it used to be. We have just run out of people to be in it.”
Similarly, the Farmland Lions Club disbanded in 2016 after 82 years because of declining and aging membership, and donated its building and six acres of property, including ball diamonds, to the local fire department.
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The Muncie Lions Club for many years was heavily involved in running what was then called the Lions Delaware County Fair. This is, until the July 2001 fair, after which the county took over operation of the county-owned fairgrounds. A Star Press article from September 2010 reported the Muncie club — described as "a service organization more or less surviving off the royalties from selling the buildings at the county fairgrounds to county government" — had given $10,000 to Red-tail Land Conservancy, using funds from county payments to the club.
Other than being cited in members' obituaries and a scholarship bearing the club's name, that report was the last time the Muncie club has been cited in The Star Press until now. An online database of corporations lists the Muncie Lions Club as having dissolved since 2017.
Some Lions Clubs still going
Other local Lions Clubs are still going, even as they, too, face the same issues of dwindling and aging membership.
The Gaston Lions Club still has its longstanding annual fair scheduled for Aug. 3-6, 2022, as well as flea markets the third weekend of each month to help maintain the club's 30-acre property. (Upcoming flea markets are scheduled for 8 a.m.-4 p.m. June 17-18 and July 15-16.)
The Gaston club — which began in 1935, according to its website — has about 36 members now, but is "always working on membership," particularly younger candidates, said Gaston Lions Club President Roger Reno. "It's hard to get the younger generation to join anything like this."
In addition to still putting on the Gaston fair (with the help of some volunteers who aren't club members, Reno noted), the club continues with projects just as collecting eyeglasses, donating to a local church's food pantry, presenting scholarships to high school seniors and delivering Christmas baskets, Reno said.
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Several other Delaware County towns' Lions Clubs also are still active, with the own high-profile community events. The Albany Lions Club for decades has hosted a Halloween festival and parade for kids, and decorates downtown with Christmas lights each year, in addition to providing scholarships, hats and gloves to local students, according to its website.
The Selma Lions Club, chartered in 1952, hosts the annual Bluebird Days Festival each August, with this year's listed on Facebook as Aug. 24-27. The club also serves all-you-can-eat breakfasts as fundraisers, and this winter delivered 100 dictionaries to Selma Elementary School fourth-graders, according to the club's Facebook page.
Other East Central Indiana communities have had their own Lions Clubs over the years, but their current status or activities aren't easily determined online.
Last gifts
Even after the Yorktown Lions Club is no longer an active service organization locally, its name and contributions will live on. The club's former property, which eventually was sold to the Town of Yorktown, is now a public park dubbed Lions Club Park. And the Yorktown Endowment Fund that provides grants for local projects each year got a significant boost in 2008 by the club's donation of funds from the sale of its land to the town.
In advance of shutting down, the Yorktown club has been donating its remaining funds, largely from the earlier sale of its property, to fund local awards and scholarships, to Little Red Door and the Yorktown Historical Society, to the Yorktown High School band.
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"We want to thank the citizens of Yorktown and Mount Pleasant Township that have supported us for 68 years," Decker said. "Without them, none of this would have been possible."
Contact content coach Robin Gibson at ragibson@gannett.com or 765-213-5855. Follow her on Twitter @RobinGibsonTSP.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Yorktown Lions Club: Local service club in Muncie area disbands
