East Kauai Lions Club sells dinner tickets for scholarships, screenings

East Kauai Lions Club members spent Saturday morning outside the Aloha Lemonade shop at Kukui Grove Center selling tickets for a spaghetti dinner that will raise money for scholarships and school health programs across the island.

The dinner pickup is set for May 30 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at King Kaumualii Elementary School in Hanamāulu. Tickets are a $15 donation, and the meal includes spaghetti with local beef meat sauce, toasted garlic bread and corn.

The club’s fundraising goes to more than a one-night meal. Proceeds support scholarships, vision and hearing screening programs in schools, the Sight Is Beautiful art contest and other club activities that keep East Kauai Lions visible in classrooms and community spaces alike.

That mix of student aid and early health detection matters. Hawaii Lions says its vision-screening program is designed to identify students with undetected or developing vision problems that can affect academic, social or personal development, while its hearing-screening program recommends annual screenings for students in grades K, 1 and 2. The Sight Is Beautiful poster contest is open to students from kindergarten through grade 6.

East Kauai Lions have a long local track record. The club was chartered on May 18, 1938, and in 2007 it screened more than 440 elementary students in the Līhue area. More recently, the club presented three scholarships in 2023 and continued scholarship presentations in 2024, underscoring how a small fundraiser can feed directly into student support.

The club’s civic role extends beyond the dinner table. Members planned to wave American flags near the Kauai Veterans Center on Monday, May 25, beginning at 9 a.m. The center says it exists to support veterans, their families and dependents and to serve as a gathering place for military and community events.

The scheduling also shows how the club adapts to local school-use rules. Dinner pickup will be handled by school cafeteria staff, a practical adjustment that keeps the fundraiser moving while using an island school site for distribution.

On a broader scale, Lions work reaches well beyond Hanamāulu. Hawaii Lions held its 17th annual statewide eyeglass and hearing-aid collection in January, with Kauai participating, and scholarship fundraising remains a major local need, including $106,000 distributed by the Kauai High School Foundation in May and $50,000 distributed by the North Shore Lions in 2025. For East Kauai, the spaghetti dinner is one more way to turn a $15 ticket into scholarships, screenings and support that reaches students, families and veterans.