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Clarksville Lions club: they serve

9/30/2022

Have you ever heard of the Lions Club? Do you know that it is their mission to serve the community? Do you know that the Lions Club is an international organization and that they have clubs just about everywhere? Do you know the impact that each of those clubs has?

The Lions Club originated in 1917 and became an international organization in 1920. Now in 2022, the Lions Club International inhabits clubs in “over 200 countries and geographic areas,” and their “48,000 clubs and 1.4 million members are helping others and making communities better.”
The Lions Club values several pillars that they hone in on when serving, but one of their biggest pillars is vision. This pillar dates back to 1925 when Helen Keller addressed the “Lions at the International Convention in Cedar Point, Ohio, USA. She famously challenges Lions to become ‘knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.’ This begins a century-long mission—impacting hundreds of millions of lives through vision-related work.”
As the beginning stages of the Lions Club International developed over the years, they established a Leo program in 1957 as a way for kids to become involved in the community and serve.
When discussing local Leo programs, Tracy Price said, “we sponsored one in Elkins and I was fortunate enough to be able to go to their inaugural meeting as the District Governor. The inaugural meeting was the installation of all of the members and there were 30 children there. It was just great. The Leos start with 10th-12th graders, and it’s a great opportunity for them to learn, and when they’re ready, step right into the Lions Club.”

Rita and Tracy Price screening K-1st graders at Clarksville Elementary

Looking at the Lions Club International and the number of clubs/members they have, it is easy to spot the leaps and bounds this organization has made, but even zooming in on a smaller scale to just the Clarksville Lions Club, proves the impact this organization continues to make. I got the chance to sit down with Rita and Tracy Price, who are both involved in the Clarksville Lions Club, to discuss how their Lions Club serves and how they are able to serve the community.
Tracy Price has been a member of the Lions Club since 1974 when he joined the organization in Dardanelle. Since 1974, Tracy has been involved in the Lions Club in most of the cities he has lived in, and he has served as Zone Chairperson, District Governer, Council of Governors Chairperson (the leader of all of the Lions Clubs in Arkansas), and he currently serves as the District Service Chairperson. Rita Price has been involved with the Lions Club for about 4-5 years, has served as Club Secretary, and currently serves as Zone Chairperson and District Secretary. The passion that these individuals have for serving the community and being a part of all of the work that the Lions Club is able to do just radiates off of them.

2022-2023 Clarksville Lions Officers

When asked what made him want to become a Lion and why he has been a part of this organization for as long as he has, Tracy said, “Service. Service to the community.”
As previously mentioned, the Lions Club’s main pillar of service is vision, and just in this year alone, they have been able to do about 750 vision screenings in Johnson County, Ozark, and Paris. The vision screenings that the Lions Club is able to do was made possible with the help of Dr. Becky King from Clarksville Family Eye Care. Dr. King is a former club president and was able to aid the Clarksville Lions Club in choosing a vision screener that generates a printout with almost all of the information needed to prescribe glasses to someone. She aids the Lions Club in seeing patients that they send her from their screenings, while also aiding in keeping the cost of glasses as low as she can for those people. In 2021, the Clarksville Lions Club has approved 8 applications to get help with obtaining glasses, and they have approved 22 applications in 2022 to help individuals with obtaining glasses. Most of the applications they have approved have been for adults because Our Kids helps with children's glasses. The Lions Club primarily screens young children but will also screen adults.

Lion Brad Baker from Mid-South Sight and Hearing presenting long time Clarksville Lions Club member Jim Graham with the Dalstrom Award for his support of Mid-South

The Clarksville Lions Club works closely with Mid-South Lions Sight and Hearing Service out of Memphis for people that are in need of specific treatment and/or surgery for any vision or hearing issues one may have. One story that Rita and Tracy shared was about an individual that lost an eye, and between the Clarksville Lions Club and Mid-South Lions Sight and Hearing Service, they were able to help her get a prosthetic eye. The Clarksville Lions Club also works closely with the Arkansas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to aid individuals that could benefit from their services. More often than not, the Clarksville Lions Club is able to help pay for things like treatment at Mid-South Lions Sight and Hearing Service, glasses, or anything of the sort for as many individuals as they can.
Rita shared the story about the individual that lost their eye and said, “In conjunction with the Mid-South Lions Sight and Hearing Service, we were able to get that person an eye, and then that person came and spoke at one of the Lions district conventions to share their story.”

Lion Tracy Price presenting Lion Philip Taylor a check to support Childhood Cancer

Not only does the Lions Club work to help people and serve the community, but they also give those that may feel outcasted or shadowed a voice. They take impairments, ailments, or disadvantages in life and walk alongside those people to help them.
Outside of vision, Rita and Tracy shared the four other pillars that the Clarksville Lions Club values are hunger, diabetes, enviornment, childhood cancer, and disaster relief. For hunger, they often collect canned food and dry good items that they can donate to various blessing boxes for the Clarksville community. Along with the vision screenings, they also do free diabetes screenings for anyone in the community at the Johnson County Senior Citizens Center. As far as the environment goes, the Clarksville Lions Club has adopted a mile along the highway to pick up trash, and they have planted trees in the area, and so on. They also have a member that has a child with cancer, which is why they started to raise money and collect donations to support those with childhood cancer. The Clarksville Lions Club aids in disaster relief by donating to the Lions Club International Foundation. This foundation is one that will donate money to cities/communities during disaster situations.

Clarksville Lions gearing up for a pulled pork dinner fundraiser

Rita said, “One of the things that we’d like to say is that Lions Club is the largest service organization in the world, not Civic, but service organization in the world…Our motto is that ‘we serve,’ and that’s what I love about this organization.”
In order to do all of the service projects that they do, the Clarksville Lions Club also does several fundraisers throughout the year. All of the money raised during these fundraisers goes directly to the account they have for service projects only. The fundraisers that they typically host are pulled pork dinners, smoked chicken dinners, pancake breakfasts, days where they set up at Walmart to collect donations, etc.
For those interested in supporting the Clarksville Lions Club, you can find all of their fundraisers and donation collection events that they are hosting through their Facebook page, Clarksville Lions Club. For anyone interested in joining the Clarksville Lions Club, you can reach out to one of their members or message them through their Facebook page. To see what the Lions are all about, they meet every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the Falcon’s Nest at noon. They are always looking for new members of any age to join and become part of their serving community.

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Clarksville, Arkansas: Where Everyone Can Play Together

9/12/2022

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Imagine a community where every child, every adult, and every family could come together to play, no matter their disabilities or impairments.

Imagine a community where a child in a wheelchair whose closest interaction with a playground has been riding around the outskirts on the sidewalk and watching other children play, can now access an entire play structure.

Imagine a community where a single mother with a stroller and a small child can still access a playground and still be able to follow her child wherever they want to go (even all the way up to the slide).

Imagine a community where a child with sensory sensitivities can play on the playground with shade provided and spaces in the playground that will allow them to step away by themselves to play if they become overstimulated.

Imagine a community where a child with a visual impairment can still go and play at a playground because it has guides for him/her to use to access it.

Imagine a community with swings, zip lines, musical instruments, and a fully accessible play structure where anyone and everyone is welcome to play and come together. That is the community that Clarksville, Arkansas is building.

How Did Clarksville Do This?

In 2019, one of the initial meetings about the inclusive playground in Clarksville, AR included Mayor David Rieder, Lara Powers, Clarksville School District’s Special Education Supervisor, Amanda Demoret, a teacher at Oark Elementary School, and Amy Oatis, a professor at the University of the Ozarks and a mom of a child with significant needs.
In sharing about that day, Mayor Rieder said, “In that meeting, the four of us had a discussion on what it means to truly be inclusive. Something happened in that meeting. You know, I’ve asked this question before, but: what does it take to change the essence of someone’s soul? Sometimes it’s a general conversation about seeing the world through other people’s eyes when we go about our lives daily and we don’t see it that way and we don’t notice certain things until we know somebody that has gone through that. But, that day at that meeting, those four ladies changed my life…and I have seen the world totally different since that day. After that meeting, we took off with a dream, we re-wrote the grant three times (they say the third time’s a charm), we took it to the state, got approved by the state and we got a grant.”

Since the beginning, the inclusive playground has been envisioned as a safe space not only for families, children, and adults alike to come together and play but also for anyone in the surrounding areas that is able to travel to Clarksville as well.
This unique group of individuals came together and established that “every family and every child needs a place to go to and feel like they belong,” according to Amy.

After that initial meeting commenced, the search for both funding and a plan of action began (and it was not always an easy process).
Everyone involved in the process of the inclusive playground (along with the group in the initial meeting) includes the following: Clarksville City Council, Darian Piper, Jackie Bateman, Jessica Gunn, Joy Wilson, Matt Bewley, Max Hilgendorf, Stacy Hurst, Steven Houserman, Wynette Holland, and Verla Clark.
Once the need for an inclusive playground in the community had been established, some searching and time proposed the opportunity to apply for the Family Fun Park Grant. After that grant was discovered, it took three different rewritings for it to be approved by the state. Before Clarksville was approved for the grant, though, Mayor Rieder wanted to ensure the funds could be allocated to be able to build the inclusive playground, no matter what. There was the Vision 21 Bond Refinance that would allow for the city to be given a lump sum of money that would go towards building the inclusive playground, the bike trails at Lake Ludwig, the baseball/softball complex, and the renovation of the soccer fields. Mayor Rieder knocked on 700+ doors, printed out flyers, and personally financed his own Facebook ads, all to ensure that the Clarksville community would understand the importance of this bond refinance (for no increase in taxes), and would allow for it to pass. Ironically, once the bond was approved for refinancing, the City of Clarksville was approved for the Family Fun Park Grant as well.

The process of finding funding for the inclusive playground took time, persistence, and patience, but that part of the process alone brought so many people in the community together consistently with trial and error. The behind-the-scenes actions to lead the City of Clarksville to the groundbreaking and eventually the ribbon cutting to the inclusive playground initiated an act of camaraderie and community that is truly incredible.

The ribbon cutting for the inclusive playground was hosted on September 10th, 2022. At the ribbon cutting, Mayor Rieder, along with several other guest speakers, shared the creation story of this playground, everyone that was involved in the creation of the playground was recognized, stories were shared, and Mary Sears and Tracy Reeves were remembered and honored in a ceremony that revealed their plaques that will remain in the front of the playground.

Mary Sears was an employee at Forrester-Davis Development Center for 26 years, and Tracy Reeves was the first client to begin at Forrester-Davis in August of 1971.
Mary Sears was also very involved in the Special Olympics as a coach both at the state and the world levels. She was the Coach of the Year in Arkansas for the Special Olympics, and she was also a coach on the International Special Olympic USA Coaching Team. After retiring from the center, Mary continued to be involved with Forrester-Davis from serving on the board to sticking around to answer questions and guide those that were walking in her footsteps.
Joy Wilson, the Director at Forrester-Davis Development Center said, “Mary had the heart of a lion for disabled children and adults. And, of course, you couldn’t think about Mary without thinking about Tracy as well.”
Tracy Reeves started attending Forrester-Davis Development Center when he was 10 years old, worked for the center, and retired at the age of 52 in June 2013. Tracy was very involved in the Special Olympics as an athlete, leaving behind his legacy of 51 gold medals, 10 silver medals, and 8 bronze medals.
Joy shared, “Tracy started in the Special Olympics in April of 1972. He went to the state games in May and won a bronze medal in the 50-yard dash. After that, he continued in the Special Olympics until May 2013. In 1991 he won a gold medal in tennis skills at Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota in the International Games. In 1995 he won a gold medal in Bocce at New Haven, Connecticut in the International Games.”
It is evident that both Mary Sears and Tracy Reeves left behind an unbelievable legacy that will now live on forever through the Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground.

What Makes a Playground Inclusive?

No matter where you go or what city you live in, there is always a portion of the population that are not able to go to a playground because of a mental or physical disability. That portion of the population is then limited, and an inclusive playground aims to remove those limits. The inclusive playground is an additional structure at Cline Park that is a completely inclusive play space. The play space includes wider ramps and walkways equipped for those in a wheelchair, those using a walker, or even those pushing a stroller. In addition to that, the play space is also made entirely of plastic, has a ground installation that makes it wheelchair accessible but also soft in case someone were to fall, and has canopied areas to provide shade for those sensitive to light/heat/etc. There are even some areas that are set apart from the main play structure for those with sensory issues and/or anxiety so that they can separate themselves from the stimulus, while still being able to enjoy the playground.

The playground is also equipped with a zipline that can hold an adult or a child with a harness, a variety of swings, slides, structures to climb on or under, and the list goes on. A fence also surrounds the playground with a gate to prevent children or adults that may become overstimulated and/or overwhelmed and try to run away.
Mayor Rieder expressed that when he was elected as mayor, he had a conversation with Verla Clark at City Hall. He said, “We talked about what our community needs and she brought up an inclusive playground, and I said, ‘what’s that?’ I didn’t know what an inclusive playground was at the time and I didn’t know that there was a difference between an ADA-compliant playground and one that was inclusive.”
From that moment on, Mayor Rieder, along with many others, truly learned about the meaning of an inclusive playground.

Establishing a playground as “inclusive” means that it truly must be inclusive to anyone and everyone that wishes to use the playground. The City of Clarksville collaborated with so many different individuals that helped ensure the inclusivity of this playground. With too many details that were incorporated in this structure to count, the description above is merely just that: a description. To truly understand the impact and the importance of this structure and this playground, you have to see it for yourself.

Why Does an Inclusive Playground Make Such a Big Impact?

Mayor Rieder said, “This playground was meant to be here and I believe that with all of my heart.”
Amy Oatis said, “Being able to play together is what makes a foundation for a good community.”
Pastor Jon Hoffman said, “This playground is the result of a conscious decision, but it’s also a compassionate decision.”
Senator Gary Stubblefield said, “You can tell a lot about a community by how they take care of their most vulnerable citizens.”
   Many others described the inclusive playground as “life-changing,” “inspirational,” “joyful,” “truly inclusive,” “empathetic,” and the list goes on.
   So many different individuals have commented on, shared stories about, and have praised the Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground, but the most common word used in all of this has been “impact” and the impact that this playground will have on Clarksville as a city, Johnson County as a whole, and even surrounding communities as well.
  As Amy mentioned, “The inclusive playground puts Clarksville on a level of much larger communities.”
The Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground will be one of 6 inclusive playgrounds in Arkansas with 2 in North Little Rock, 1 in Jonesboro, 1 in Springdale, and 1 in Bentonville (with a 7th inclusive playground in progress in Fort Smith). With Clarksville being a much smaller community than the ones previously mentioned, the Reeves/Sears Inclusive Playground really opens up Clarksville to other smaller communities in the surrounding areas as well. No matter how big or how small a community may be, though, anyone and everyone deserves to have a safe space to come and play.
After the speeches were presented at the ribbon cutting, the ceremony shifted to the gate of the playground, the ribbon was cut signifying that the Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground was open, and all of the kids present were able to enter the playground and play–all together. That specific moment not only represented how the community of Clarksville is changing and being impacted, but it also represented the people that were changed and impacted as well.
For example, Jackie mentioned, “Before I took this job with the city, I was a behavior technician, so when I started working with the city and started working on this project, it became near and dear to my heart and it was a privilege to be able to work on it.”
   Another individual that was personally impacted at the ribbon cutting, specifically, was Mayor Rieder. When asked to describe the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremony and how it felt to watch such a large group of people run onto the Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground for the first time, Mayor Rieder said, “Inspirational. That day inspired me to think of more and to do more as a community to be more inclusive.”
As an individual who was present at the ribbon cutting for the playground as well, I do not think I have ever felt or witnessed the feeling of pure joy quite like I did on that day. Since the origination of the idea of the Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground, it has brought the community of Clarksville together in such a unique and special way that was clearly present at the dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony. There were laughs, happy tears, hugs, pride, and the vision of all children, all adults, and all families being able to come together and just play come to life. Watching that vision come to life really and truly emphasized the impact that this playground has–and will continue to have.

The Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground was built next to the original play structure at Cline Park, and they are both surrounded by the gated fence. Including both of these structures in the fenced areas, it truly opens the play space to any and all children, adults, and families–it allows everyone to play together without separation or seclusion. The playground is also available to be a destination for day trips for Forrester Davis/M.A.C. Industries, all of the schools in the area, and any other group/club/etc. that wishes to reserve the playground for a visit.
The Sears/Reeves Inclusive Playground will make such a significant impact in our community–and surrounding communities–because its intention is simple: everyone, no matter their abilities, should be given the opportunity to feel pure joy and the inclusion that this playground will offer for many years and many generations to come.

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Clarksville Lions club: they serve

Clarksville, Arkansas: Where Everyone Can Play Together

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