Every town has a group of people who just keep showing up. They’re the ones cooking at the festival, cleaning up the park after a storm, quietly helping a neighbor get a pair of glasses they couldn’t afford. In Everglades City, that group has a name.

The Everglades Lions Club has been doing that work since 1952. Most residents have benefited from it at some point without ever knowing it.

What the Lions Club Does Here

The list is longer than most people realize.

Over the decades, Lions Club members have helped replaced playground equipment after Hurricane Irma destroyed the park. They’ve organized clean-up days, replanted trees, and helped get shade awnings installed over the playground. When flooding from Hurricane Ian hit, they showed up again.

They’ve helped fund the Everglades water tower mural. They’ve planted trees in the median, supported the Hook’em in the Glades fishing fundraiser, and worked alongside organizations like Holly’s Hope and Fishers of Men.

They’ve also quietly helped community members get eyeglasses and hearing aids when the cost was out of reach. That mission goes back to the very beginning of the club and continues today.

The Chuck Wagon

If you’ve been to pretty much any community event in Everglades City, there’s a good chance the Lions Club was somewhere nearby doing the cooking.

The Chuck Wagon is one of the club’s most visible traditions. Members serve smoked mullet fillets, mullet dip, burgers, and hot dogs at events like the Everglades Seafood Festival.

In the early years of the festival, Lions members caught the mullet themselves, smoked it on site, and made the dip from scratch. These days the mullet comes from a local fisherman or nearby fish house, but the prep and cooking are still handled entirely by club members.

The Chuck Wagon started because a building fund the club had been growing for years never quite reached its goal. Rather than let the money sit, members used it to buy equipment they could take into the community. That turned out to be the better call.

The cooking tradition continues to this day. In recent weeks alone, Lions members prepared more than 160 meals at community events held at Everglades Isles.

The Turkey Shoot

Another Lions Club tradition that locals look forward to is the Turkey Shoot — a shooting competition where participants fire at paper targets for prizes. Despite the name, no animals are involved. It’s a family event rooted in the Gladesmen hunting traditions that have long been part of life in this part of South Florida.

The event went on pause for seven or eight years when no safe location could be found. Last year it came back, held at Mayberry’s Tower Camp in Ochopee, Florida. A group of Lions members who also teach at Everglades School helped make it happen.

Events like this don’t continue on their own. Someone has to organize them, find the location, and put in the hours. That’s what the Lions Club does.

The club is currently preparing for its largest annual fundraiser — this year’s Turkey Shoot.

A Little History

The Everglades Lions Club was chartered on November 6, 1952, with 42 members. There were already Lions Clubs in Naples, Florida and Immokalee, Florida at the time, and many of the founding Everglades members had connections to those clubs. The local chapter was formed to serve this community directly.

One of the club’s earliest fundraisers was a fish fry held in March of 1953 to raise money for sight conservation and the club’s building fund. Tickets were $1 for adults and 50 cents for children. More than 200 people attended, and the event raised $192.50.

That same month the club organized a Donkey Baseball game at the Everglades School baseball diamond to raise money for the Eye Conservation Fund.

Today’s 47 members move mountains in our community — the kind of quiet work that keeps a small town strong.

Check Them Out

The Everglades Lions Club meets the second Thursday of each month from September through May at 6:00 PM at Everglades Community Church in the Jinkin’s Fellowship Hall adjacent to the church.

You may also be interested in the Lions Club Turkey Shoot on March 21st and 22nd.