South Whidbey Lions Club Faces Closure as Membership Ages, Funds Run Low

South Whidbey could lose one of its oldest quiet safety nets in June, when the South Whidbey Lions Club says it may close unless new members step forward. With only a handful of members left, average age 74, and a little more than $3,000 in the bank, the club can still fund one final scholarship for a high school senior this year, but it can no longer keep up the charitable work that has defined it for decades.

President Kent Renshaw said the club marked its 78th anniversary in March without a celebration because, in his words, there was “nothing to celebrate” while the organization struggled to survive. The club nearly folded years ago and has hung on despite a long decline in membership, but the latest squeeze on both people and money has pushed it close to the edge.

If the club disappears, the loss will be felt far beyond the meeting room at M Bar C Ranch in Freeland, where the Lions still list their second-Thursday 11 a.m. gathering. The club has supported local needs ranging from scholarships to donations for Good Cheer and help buying eyeglasses and hearing aids for people who cannot afford them. Lions Clubs International says those kinds of requests are handled by local clubs, which decide what they can do based on their own funds. On South Whidbey, those funds are nearly gone.

That matters because Lions clubs have long filled gaps that formal systems often miss. The international network, founded in Chicago in 1917, now spans about 1.4 million members in more than 46,000 clubs, with work that includes sight and hearing support, hunger relief, youth programs and disaster aid. On the island, the South Whidbey club has been part of that tradition, even as its membership aged and its accounts thinned.

Bobbi Lornson, an associate member and zone chairman, said many groups and individuals on the South End would miss the club if it vanished. Mike Hill, the vice president, said there are things that could be done on South Whidbey that may no longer get done because the club is not there to do them. Hearts and Hammers has already taken on some of the work the Lions can no longer sustain, a sign of how one fading volunteer group can shift the load to another.

The question now is whether a younger generation will carry on that work before the club’s remaining functions disappear. South Whidbey’s Lions are still active, but their window to avoid closure is closing fast.