Cooperstown Lions Club Celebrates 75 Years
By ERIC SANTOMAURO-STENZEL
COOPERSTOWN
On Saturday, October 4, the Cooperstown Lions Club celebrated its 75th anniversary at The Otesaga Resort Hotel. The volunteer service organization received a $1,000.00 check from the Cooperstown Rotary Foundation to mark the occasion.
“For three quarters of a century,” Rotarian Dr. Bertine McKenna told the well-dressed club members, “the Lions have consistently shown what it means to care for others and to strengthen the heart of the community.”
Cooperstown Lions Club projects over the last year alone have included offering student scholarships, doing river cleanup, a pancake breakfast, supporting a SNAP match plan that doubles the value of vouchers at the Cooperstown Farmers’ Market and more. At a time when many volunteer service organizations have seen declines across the nation, Cooperstown remains an engaged community. The club also has a youth wing, the Leo Club, at the high school.
Over its 75 years, the club has had a wide-reaching impact. Recruited by the Oneonta Lions Club, 20 charter members began the Cooperstown chapter in the fall of 1950, according to a club brochure. The brochure recounted a 1956 effort to get a Coast Guard instructional vessel onto Otsego Lake, its 1970 sponsorship of the Richfield Springs Lions Club, and legal incorporation in 1988. The club says there have been about 500 members over its history, at one point having three generations of a family at once.
The Cooperstown Lions Club meets on the first and third Wednesdays of the month from September to June. Information can be found at CooperstownLionsClub.org and on Facebook at “Cooperstown Lions Club.”
