DG Chuck and Lion Paulette Bailey

Fellow Lions of District 12-N,

Lion Paulette and I are just back from the USA-Canada Forum in Anchorage, AK where we enjoyed some stimulating seminars and once again had the opportunity to interface with our International President, Tam. 

He told us about how nervous he was following the International Convention when he would go on to the LCI website and find that the only tree that was planted was the one he planted in Seattle.  He finally found relief several weeks later when Lions began reporting the planting of trees.  As of the end of September, our first quarter, 2,140,345 have been planted.  Most of those are in the Southern hemisphere where trees are in their dormant period.

We, here in the northern hemisphere, are just about to enter the dormant period, the best time for tree planting.  You may recall that while I was in Seattle, I committed that District 12-N would plant 1,142 trees (essentially, one for each Lion in our District) as part of President Tam’s campaign to plant One Million trees around the world.  I called the TN Dept. of Agriculture, Forestry Division to inquire about when our 1,200 Loblolly 2.0 Gen (pine tree) seedlings would arrive and was informed that it wouldn’t be until December.  We will need to work fast and have them in the ground before the ground freezes.

I’m delighted to tell you that for the clubs I visited, the reception of President Tam’s tree planting campaign has been overwhelming.  The plan was that I, or a Zone Chair, would deliver to each club president enough seedlings for each member of the club.  However, most of the clubs visited have seen the tree planting opportunity as a potential community event that could involve school classes on school grounds or a public park and have requested more than one tree per member.  If your tree planting is a community event, please describe it in a short article with pictures.  We’ll see that it gets to our News & Views editor, Bobby Harrington, for publication and possibly on to the LCI web site.

Since I will probably not get to all the clubs prior to delivery of the seedlings, I’d like to ask all club Presidents to e-mail me with the number of trees your club desires (chuckyegg@aol.com).  Based on your response I will modify the number ordered.

I have to admit that I was skeptical upon first hearing about the tree planting campaign, but I have come to believe that it is a marvelous way for Lions to show the world that we do make a difference.  Only Lions International, people of different ethnic backgrounds who don’t speak the same language, don’t have the same skin color, don’t worship the same God can come together for a common cause such as planting One Million Trees.  Lions, we do make a difference, Lion by Lion, community by community, around the world.

Do you believe?

Yours in Lionism,

DG Chuck Bailey