Food Bank

The San Francisco Food Bank attacts volunteers from many different orgnizations, GRYPHONS Leo Club being one. Although they are open every day of the week, the majority of our members are only available on weekends, so we typically do this activity once a month. There are many different jobs assigned to volunteers, including preparing senior boxes, packing various fruits and vegetables, and packaging grains such as rice and pasta into 1lb bags. 

Book Redistribution

The San Francisco Public Library recieves grants to purchase new books every year. However, there is not enough space in the overcrowded library system to house all these new additions, therefore, the library is forced to take many books that are still in good condition out of circulation. GRYPHONS Leo Club, with the assistance of Lion Helen Marte of our host San Francisco Fil-Am Lions Club, has collaborated with the San Franciscio Public Library System to redistribute these used books back to the community. These books are generally handed out for free during the Lion's Health Fairs, which take place over the winter almost every week to give out free flu  and Hepatitis B vaccines, as well as glucose screening and other services.

Blood Pressure

In addition to our Book Redistribution, GRYPHONS Leo Club also offers another service at the Health Fairs, the taking of Blood Pressure. The San Francisco Host Lions Club, which organizes these Health Fairs, has allowed us to set up booths at these Health Fairs and a seperate division from the Books team takes the BP of patients and then records it to be examined by a physician later. These measurement devices are fully automatic, Leos simply assist patients by putting on the cuff and pressing the button, and then reading the results and taking off the cuff when the test is complete.

Lions in Sight

Although this project has been undertaken less as of late, GRYPHONS Leo Club was extremely active in the Lions in Sight Foundation of California and Nevada (MD4) for LY2011-2012, when our host club San Francisco Fil-Am Lions helped found the first LIS Eye Bank in the Philippines. During this period, we visited the warehouse in Vallejo about once every 2 months to help unpack, resort, and repackage donated used eyeglasses to be distributed to third world countries. However, since Vallejo is pretty far, this project is not done regularly. Leo Rhayea, who lives in Vallejo, understandably, is the most active participant in this project.

Food Serving

Our category of Food Serving is very vague, since there are two locations that we serve food. Our most regular occation is at the Glyde Memorial Church in downtown San Francisco, where we serve breakfast to the homeless or pack them bag lunches to be given after the meal. The other, more rare occasion is whenever the San Francisco Coordinating Council meeting is hosted by our region (Region 1), which is when we help serve breakfast and lunch, as well as sell raffle tickets and clean up after the event. The former is done maybe once a month, and the latter is annually, unless another Region requires our assistance.

Performance

Our category of Performance is also very vague. We have many talented performers in our club with their own routines. But we have 2 distinct club performances, including many within the club. Our first performance was a traditional presentation of native Filipino Tinikling dancing, which we have performed at our last two Installation of Officers. This is an eight person group including our President and Immediate Past President, three current Officers, and 2 professional dancers. The second is a club-wide Christmas caroling, where we performed at a large number of Lion's houses, including past District Governors. This project, started this year, has become a good source of fundraising for our club.