The Perry Lions Club accepted a 32-year-old gift from its Italian friends at a recent meeting.
Lion Richard Saemisch reminded the club that one-time Lion John Powell of Perry hosted a foreign exchange student from Italy in 1986. The student’s grandfather was a member of the Lions Club in Rome, and he sent Powell a cloth patch from the Rome Lions Club, wishing good will to the Perry Lions Club.
Saemisch recommended to his fellow Lions that the patch — featuring the image of a wolf suckling the founder brothers of Rome, Romulus and Remus — be sewed on the Perry Lion’s Club banner. The 10 members roared their approval of a good idea more than 30 years in the making.
Lion Andy Bambrick then introduced a guest to the membership, Larry Laborde, an attorney who grew up in Perry and earned a law degree from the University of Iowa. Laborde spoke to the club about alcoholism and drug addiction and the work he is doing as treasurer of the Alano Club Board of Directors to assist local Perry residents with these problems.
Laborde has worked with the local Alcoholics Anonymous group to get a new updated facility for the A.A. meetings near the corner of Second and Pattee streets. Laborde said the Alano Club group has so far received a $2,500 grant from the Bock Family Foundation Grant, a $6,500 donation from the 100+ People for Perry and a bank loan to fund the remodeling of the building.
Laborde asked the Perry Lions Club for a $350 gift to assist with the project, but the Perry Lions bettered him by voing unanimously to make a $500 donation to the Alano Club.
The evening’s program, “Birds of the Southwest,” was presented by Lion Ray Harden, who showed photos of birds that he and his wife saw on a late winter vacation in March 2018. He gave interesting facts about the birds and the desert environment in which they live.
The local Lions supped on the Hotel Pattee’s pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, potato chips and cookies for dessert. No menu was shown, and the waiter did not punch the Lions’ meal cards but served the food and was not seen again.
