NORTHERN KENTUCKY HOSTING STATE LIONS CLUB DISTRICT CONVENTION

Contact: Kew Taybi
(859) 380-0781 (m), (859) 371-9393 (h)

NORTHERN KENTUCKY HOSTING STATE LIONS CLUB DISTRICT CONVENTION

Hebron, KY/April 3, 2008—The Kentucky Lions Club Northern District will hold its annual convention this weekend Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5 at the Sheraton Cincinnati Airport Hotel.

Thirty seven Lions, Lioness and Leo Clubs from the 22 most northern counties of the state will be represented. This assembly is to elect officers for the coming fiscal year and exchange ideas in raising funds for the humanitarian projects that Lions are involved in local, statewide, national and international levels. With one million three hundred thousand members worldwide, Lions are the largest and most active civic organization in the world.

Although Lions are involved in a variety of charitable programs, they are best known for their eyesight conservation program. Recently Lions in 200 countries around the world raised over 150 million dollars to stamp out preventable blindness and save the eyesight of nearly 70 million needy people by the year 2020. Lions of Kentucky also are involved in a program called KidSight that started four years ago through a matching grant from Lions Clubs International. KidSight program is designed to identify children between the ages of 1 and 5 who have Amblyopia (Lazy Eye). Three percent of children in this age group have Amblyopia. If detected early, it is treatable. If not identified and corrected, eventually could result in total blindness.

The Lions of Northern Kentucky along with the other 6,000 members in the State of Kentucky have a mission to raise one million dollars to fund the KidSight program and prevent thousands of children, now and in the future, from going blind. The photo-screenings normally take place at day-care and pre-school facilities. With the consent of parents, with a special camera, two pictures of the child's eyes are taken and sent to a specialist at the Kentucky Lions Eye Foundation in Louisville for interpretation. If the result is positive, parents are contacted to take their child to an eye doctor for further evaluation. For more information about KidSight Program and what Lions do and how you can join the crusade to fight blindness, please call 371-9353.

The motto of Lions is "We Serve", however, beyond serving their communities, on daily basis Lions Change Lives around the world.

The mission of the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau is that of an aggressive sales, marketing, service and informational organization whose primary responsibility is to positively impact the Northern Kentucky economy through conventions, meetings and visitor expenditures. The direct economic impact of visitors' spending in Campbell, Kenton and Boone Counties in 2007 was $325 million.