Milpitas Gateway Lions Club

Lions Clubs – Ready to Help, Worldwide

Whenever a Lions club gets together, problems get smaller. And communities get better. That's because we help where help is needed – in our own communities and around the world – with unmatched integrity and energy.


The World's Largest Service Club Organization

Our 46,000 clubs and 1.4 million members in 210 countries make us the world's largest service club organization. We're also one of the most effective. Our members do whatever is needed to help their local communities. Everywhere we work, we make friends. With children who need eyeglasses, with seniors who don’t have enough to eat and with people we may never meet.


Lions Clubs International History

In 1917, Melvin Jones, a 38-year-old Chicago business leader, told members of his local business club they should reach beyond business issues and address the betterment of their communities and the world. Jones' group, the Business Circle of Chicago, agreed.

After contacting similar groups around the United States, an organizational meeting was held on June 7, 1917, in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The new group took the name of one of the invited groups, the "Association of Lions Clubs," and a national convention was held in Dallas, Texas, USA in October of that year. A constitution, by-laws, objects and a code of ethics were approved.

Within three years, Lions became an international organization. Since then, we've earned high marks for both integrity and transparency. We're a well-run organization with a steady vision, a clear mission, and a long – and proud – history.


Lions Code of Ethics

1. TO SHOW my faith in the worthiness of my vocation by industrious application to the end that I may merit a reputation for quality of service.

2. TO SEEK success and to demand all fair remuneration or profit as my just due, but to accept no profit or success at the price of my own self-respect lost because of unfair advantage taken or because of questionable acts on my part.

3. TO REMEMBER that in building up my business it is not necessary to tear down another's; to be loyal to my clients or customers and true to myself.

4. WHENEVER a doubt arises as to the right or ethics of my position or action towards others, to resolve such doubt against myself.

5. TO HOLD friendship as an end and not a means. To hold that true friendship exists not on account of the service performed by one to another, but that true friendship demands nothing but accepts service in the spirit in which it is given.

6. ALWAYS bear in mind my obligations as a citizen to my nation, my state, and my community, and to give them my unswerving loyalty in word, act, and deed. To give them freely of my time, labor and means.

7. TO AID others by giving my sympathy to those in distress, my aid to the weak, and my substance to the needy.

8. TO BE CAREFUL with my criticism and liberal with my praise; to build up and not destroy.