Burgess Hill District Lions Club is celebrating an amazing 65 years of community service this Saturday (March 14). The club was originally formed in March 1955, with the first president in office being Lion David Saunders, who when passing to higher service in 2014, had completed 62 years as a Lion serving the community. At the launch of the club there were 15 members, 65 years later we have an active mixed club with 37 members. In these 65 years so much ground has been covered. One of the first projects was helping to build Burgess Hill Boys Club, now known as Burgess Hill Youth, and they have just celebrated their 60th anniversary. We run a successful second hand book shop in Church Walk, Burgess Hill, called The Book Den and all profits from the shop are put back into the local community helping people like Community Transport Sussex based in Mid Sussex, Woodlands Meed School, Christmas food hampers, Chailey Heritage Foundation, Burgess Hill Community Radio, Burgess Hill Town Council projects and we have been involved with more than 40 defibrillators being installed. Coming soon on October 17, at The Triangle leisure centre in Burgess Hill will be the fifth year of prostate cancer testing and this gets bigger every year. We have three adopted youth projects which are Respect Youth Club, Burgess Hill Youth and Burgess Hill Marching Youth. The success of the Burgess Hill District Lions Club depends to a large extent on the support of the local community. This we have in a very large measure for which we are very grateful. We look forward to working together for the good of the community during the coming years. So a very big thank you to everyone but it would be wrong if we did not offer up special thanks to all the hours that the Book Den volunteers put in. The Lions motto is ‘We Serve’ and its mission statement reads: “To create and foster a spirit of understanding among all people for humanitarian needs by providing voluntary services through community involvement and cooperation.” Our aim is to help the less fortunate in our society with our activities concentrating on the needs of the local community. If you wish to know more about us please check out our website here or call 0845 8332706.