The Emmaus Lions Club will celebrate its 80 year anniversary with its first fundraiser of the year, A Nite at the Races, at the Alburtis Area Community Center, 220 W. Second St., Alburtis March 8. Doors open 5 p.m.; the first race runs 6:30 p.m. All races were filmed at accredited tracks, shown on a large screen and bets are made to select the winning horse. The admission ticket includes a hot and cold buffet, beer, wine and soda. For tickets and information, call Don Kaufman at 610-776-7477 or email drkcasper@gmail.com.

The Emmaus Lions Club was chartered in 1945. Since its charter, the club has donated more than $1.8 million to our local community and communities around the world. The club is part of Lions International with 1.4 million members in over 45,000 clubs and Lions are active in 206 countries around the world.

The Emmaus Lions helped start the Emmaus Ambulance Corps and ran door-to-door fund drives to purchase new ambulances and equipment. These drives continued until the corps started charging membership fees to get much needed revenue.

One of the club’s biggest fundraisers was the annual Minstrel Show which ran for 54 years, with the last show held in 1999. In January 2000, a monthly hoagie sale replaced the minstrel show. Today, the club also makes clam chowder twice a year, holds an annual golf tournament, a Nite at the Races event and various other projects to raise funds to support its mission, “We Serve.”

In 1990, the Emmaus Lions Club partnered with the Borough of Emmaus and helped develop the K-9 program for the Emmaus Police Department. For 35 years the club provided funds for the purchase of all the K-9 police dogs and for most of the training and equipment. The Emmaus Police Department has been very appreciative of the program and in honor of the Lions, named the 2024 K-9 dog, “Leo.” Consequently, Leo is the name of Lions youth organizations, and in 2024, the Emmaus Lions Club sponsored the Emmaus Leo Club. These members are devoted young people who realize the power of action.

The Emmaus Lions Club conducts many service projects in the community in line with Lions International Focus Areas: The environment, hunger, vision, diabetes, pediatric cancer, youth, humanitarian effort and disaster relief.