WHERE THERE'S A NEED, THERE'S A LION
All text links on this site are this color with no underlines.
WHO WE ARE
We're your friends and neighbors.
You've probably seen this Lions International logo before. Or spotted Pioneer Lions Club members around town wearing their Lions tee shirts, ball caps or bright yellow jackets.
Lions are everywhere. From our beginning in Chicago over 100 years ago, we have grown to become the largest service club organization in the world. More }than 1.4 million members strong are serving in over 48,000 clubs in 200 countries and geographic areas around the globe. Here are some of the things Lions are doing together, all around the world.
The 140+ Longview Pioneer Lions are men and women; young, old, and in-between; of all backgrounds, education, and professions, with a common desire to work together to help improve our neighbors' quality of life, and make our community a better, happier place
to live.
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We are best known for fighting blindness, but we also volunteer for many different kinds of community projects-- including caring for the environment, feeding the hungry, aiding seniors and the disabled, and providing youth scholarships. Take a look at some of our activities in the slides, photos and YouTube video linked from this page.
LIONS
MAKE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN!
A group of Longview Pioneer Lions ready to get out and serve our community! See that empty chair on the left? That's reserved for you! Come and join us!
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Take a look at some of the things we do to help our neighbors in the slides behind the dots below:
and a short promotional video here.
WHAT WE DO
We Serve!
For a very long time, Longview Pioneer Lions have been serving our community and surrounding area in the Lower Columbia region (we celebrated our 100th birthday last year!!). We provide eyeglasses and hearing aids for those who can't afford them; award student scholarships; help with elementary school vision screenings; support Camp Leo for Children with Diabetes; sponsor numerous community events and organizations; assist local families in need. Here are some of our current service projects. For Pioneer Lions, staying busy is business as usual!
Lions Island
In the 1960s Pioneer Lions adopted an undeveloped island in Lake Sacajawea removed brush and debris, and planted new shrubbery. They built footpaths, laid underground wiring, built a bridge to the island and erected a totem pole. In 1969, the city named it Lions Island. Pioneers still maintain the island today, and work with the City of Longview Parks & Recreation Department every year to string many thousands of club-owned LED bulbs and animated displays to light the island splendidly during the holiday season.
Many years ago, the club refurbished and painted the island's totem pole, and is making plans to likely do so again in the near future.
School Gardens
Lion Anne works the tractor on a club project day at Northlake Elementary School garden. Through growing and tending the dynamic garden and cooking lessions, students cultivate health, equity, life-long learning, and stewardship of the world around us. Longview Pioneers help in that effort several times each year in volunteer work parties weeding, fertilizing, pruning and winterizing the garden beds and orchard at this original Longview school garden. The club has also donated and placed new Trex benches into the Northlake and Columbia Heights Elementary School gardens.
Roaring for Reading
Pioneers support the upcoming generation of readers. An outgrowth of its Reading is Fundamental (RIF) support, volunteers visit Columbia Heights Elementary School to read children's books to groups of students and give each one a free book of their own. Reading confidently takes time and patience. Having support from someone else can help keep a child's interest strong while he or she is learning to read. Pioneers encourage the kids as they learn, helping them grow to love books while they practice listening quietly.
Wetlands Clean Up
The members among Pioneer Lions with plenty of stamina have spent a lot of hours the past two years cleaning away trash, in partnership with the City of Longview Public Works Department to periodically clean up a vacant wooded section of city wetlands adjacent to a Longview neighborhood. Work parties of Lions hauling out, piling and bagging trash from trailsides, woods, verges, and wetlands make a big difference, and greatly improve the vistas around our otherwise beautiful green spaces. The Pioneer Lions who participate in the clean-ups get plenty of exercise, lots of social engagement while working together, and have a great time doing it!
Sight & Hearing Assistance
Since 1925, Lions Clubs have worked to aid the blind and visually impaired. Pioneer Lions join with most of the Lions Clubs in our zone to obtain and support the use of vision spot cameras to screen the eyesight of elementary school children; and to refer them to optometrists to get the glasses or vision services they need. Hearing loss is the number one disability in the world. Insurance coverage of most adults and families doesn't cover the average $3,000 cost of hearing aids, far out of reach for the typical household. Our partner Sight & Hearing Foundation of Cowlitz County provides eye and hearing screenings, needed eyeglasses, and hearing aids to children and adults who can't afford them.
Longview Pioneers work to protect and improve our environment. In addition to carefully cleaning up of our work space following fundraising and service events, the club has adopted a stretch of Coal Creek Road in Longview through the Cowlitz County Adopt A Road program. Pioneer Lions periodically don hard hats and safety vests and head out onto the verge and into the ditches, to clean up roadside trash and often collect other "colorful," sometimes startling, cast-offs. It's hard and dirty work, but a fun day. Big thanks for doing a thankless job! Many bags of trash are collected-- you could say Pioneer Lions are the best of the litter!
Scholarship Awards
Encouraging student scholars is a big part of our service. Each year, in memory of past Lions dedicated to serving our community, who believed in higher education opportunities, Pioneer Lions Club awards academic or vocational scholarships. In partnership with Longview Public Schools, four graduating seniors planning to attend a college or technical school of their choice receive scholarships. Partnering with Lower Columbia College Foundation, one academic and one vocational/technical scholarship is awarded to students continuing their studies at Lower Columbia College. In some years, additional scholarships have been awarded to private high school and alternative public high school students
in Longview.
Youth Ball Fields
Handy men (and sometimes women!) in our club have come together for many years to construct and tend local youth sports fields. The latest of these projects has been volunteer work and club donation for improvements at the Central Sandlot youth baseball field in the Longview Highlands neighborhood, where boys and girls learn to play the game in baseball clinics; and at the Seventh Avenue fields of the Longview Girls' Softball Association, which aims to provide young ladies a competitive softball experience, develop skills, & lifelong learning.
White Cane Days
Today white cane laws are on the books of every state in the US and in a few other countries, providing blind persons a legal status in traffic. A white cane universally acknowledges that the bearer is blind. Pioneer Lions are in our community on White Cane Awareness Day, reminding motorists of the need to exercise extra caution and provide sight impaired persons the right of way, and recognizing the independence, confidence and skills of the blind and visually impaired. Pioneers work to increase community awareness of Lions sight programs through the Northwest Lions Foundation and the Sight & Hearing Foundation of Cowlitz County.
HOW WE DO IT
Mostly by creating fun!
We raise money in our community to give back to our community. 100% of our net proceeds from every dollar earned or donated by the public is returned to the public through our projects and services to help others. When we're not earning funds to give, we are helping to make our community a better place to live in one fun way or another.
Here's a little YouTube video of Pioneers busy running the children's races and handing out prizes to happy kids during the annual Go 4th Independence Day community event.​
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Double-click the photos below to see slides of members at work in some of our fundraising projects.
WHAT'S HAPPENING LATELY ?
New ways to serve!
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Lions all over the world are creatively serving their neighbors.
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Lions in 200 countries (and right here in Longview) step up every day to help people in need, making responsive plans to meet challenges in their districts, cities, and neighborhoods, while living positive, forward-looking lives. One thing is sure: whatever the conditions on the ground, Lions continue to serve our neighbors at home and throughout the world!
Take a look at some of the activities of Lions Clubs worldwide.
Hope to see you at our upcoming events!
Pioneer Lions Club is working hard to create new ways to help our neighbors. We always have something fun and exciting going on to engage with our community. ​
You won't want to miss our tasty treats.
Indulge your inner kid!
Wherever you see the yellow Pioneer Chuckwagon around our community,
come and enjoy a tasty Pioneer burger right off the grill-- be sure to order it
with the Pioneer Lions secret sauce. Yum! Or embellish one of our super hot dogs
or polish dogs with your favorite fixin's! Don't forget a big bag of
crunchy kettle corn or caramel corn. Enjoy a big scoop of cold delicious ice cream.
Great food, great fun, always part of a great weekend.
100% of profits earned from the community are returned to the community
through scholarships, assistance programs, and donations to other
community-serving programs and organizations.
New Chuckwagon Rolls Out to Serve
The iconic Pioneer Lions Chuckwagon made its debut in 1975,
and for almost 50 years was literally our vehicle to raise funds at many local events to serve our community. Finally, our old faithful wagon was retired in 2023 and replaced.
These days, Pioneer Lions Chuckwagon 2.0 is a fixture at the annual Go-4th celebration, Cowlitz County Rodeo, summer evening concerts at Lake Sacajawwa, and numerous other venues around Longview, ready to bring customers all their favorite festival foods, cooked and served up in a newer space but with the same friendly smiles as always.
Look for it around the community throughout the years to come.
Yes, it is iconic Pioneer Lions yellow. You can't miss it!
Other things that
Longview Pioneer Lions have been up to:
Also...
Annual Appreciation Lunch Service for Cowlitz County First Responders
Annual Free Lunch at PUD for Homeless and Underserved Residents
Facility Set Up of United Way Power of the Purse Women's Impact Event
Food Service at Longview Parks and Recreation Xtreme Machines Event
Jumbo's Memorial Motorcycles Toy Run Traffic Control
Squirrel Fest Food Service
Thunder Mountain Pro Rodeo Food Service
American Cancer Society Support
Salvation Army Family Christmas Gifting
Annual Go 4th Festival Food Sales and Service
White Can Awareness
Financial Donation to Several Community Agencies and Regional Nonprofit Foundations
Food Service at Various Classic Car Shows and Downtown Events
...And a Few Others
We have fun...come join us!
OUR PARTNERS
They help make our work successful.
Some of the organizations that we support, and those that help us in our projects.
CONTACT THE PIONEERS
Better yet, visit us. Our meetings are always open, and you are welcome and invited anytime. If you’re interested in learning more about us, please send us a message! You can reach us via the message form or email link at the bottom of this page.
And also here, third Thursday of every month, 6:00-7:00 pm.
Ashtown Brewing Co.
1145 11th Avenue
Longview WA
Questions?
Want to know more? Need to request assistance? Please let us know. To make an inquiry or obtain more information, just fill out and submit the form below, or email through the link above the photo.
Contact Us
Longview Pioneer Lions
PO Box 1102
Longview WA 98632
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Email to:
Longview Pioneer Lions President
2025-26 Sharon Nolen
To report issues or problems with the functions of this website, please contact the web manager through the contact form above or email to crcoast@comcast.net. Thanks!
Want to know more about who Lions are and what we do?
You can read and hear more about the great things other Lions Clubs are doing throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond at Lions Multiple District 19 and Lions International. Both sites have contact links if you would like to speak with a friendly, knowledgeable representative of our organization.