Congratulations to the Negaunee Lions Club, which is celebrating its 50th year in 2018. We are thankful for the organization and all the good it achieves for the local community.

For those unfamiliar, Lions Clubs are all over the globe, led by Lions Club International. Those belonging to a Lions Club follow a code of ethics which has many parts including: “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. (To) always to 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. To aid others by giving my sympathy to those in distress, my aid to the weak, and my substance to the needy. (And) To be careful with my criticism and liberal with my praise; to build up and not destroy.”

Lofty, wonderful goals, indeed.

The Negaunee Lions Club will have one of its major fundraisers, the annual pancake breakfast, is set for 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday in the Lakeview Elementary School cafeteria. Tickets for the event, which includes pancakes, eggs, sausage, fruit, coffee and juice, are $7 per person or $25 for a family and are available at the door.

This particular Lions Club has a long list of groups and projects it supports, like youth programs, which benefit from the pancake feast.

“This is our biggest fundraiser every year,” said longtime Lions Club member Dave Hallgren in a story by Staff Writer Christie Bleck.

Anywhere between 300 to 600 people are served at the annual event.

“It’s a good community gathering because a lot of the people that come to the event, they see people they see only once a year, and they have a good visit,” Hallgren said.

In its half-century, the Negaunee Lions Club’s list of accomplishments is long. For instance, its members volunteer at the annual Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Epic, putting on a “spaghetti feed” the night before the race.

Other events at which the club volunteers are the Noquemanon Ski Marathon and the Polar Roll Fat Bike Race. Hallgren said the Negaunee Lions also are a big supporter of Bay Cliff Health Camp in Big Bay and the state Lions group’s Leader Dogs for the Blind school in downstate Michigan.

More of the club’s projects are detailed at negauneelions.com.

We hope this year’s pancake breakfast is a busy event as we know the Negaunee Lions Club will turn the proceeds it comes away with into gold for the community.