Lions Roaring Louder than Ever – Join Us!

The Southeast Lions have been serving our beloved South Side, South End neighborhoods since 1940. I grew up in the South End. My Dad was a Lion and he took our family to the annual Lions picnic at the YMCA Park throughout the sixties and seventies. My sisters and I went down the Grandaddy slide (built by the Lions) dozens of times. We played softball and ate lots and lots of hot dogs and burgers. My Dad and his fellow Lions went door to door and sold the Lions Roar (this newspaper) raising funds for local neighborhood schools and organizations.

But time goes by, and things change. That Grandaddy slide is no longer there. Many folks moved out of the neighborhood and many others moved in. Things seemed simpler back then, and many folks reflect on those times with nostalgia and even wish things had not changed. I love hearing stories from some of our older Lions. Their eyes tear up as they share moments when they gave a pilot dog to a new owner, or a big check to the Dominican Learning Center to support immigrants, or built and donated the Southeast Lions Park and on and on. The Lions have done so much good over the years in the South End.

There are some wonderful things to build on as we grow our club today. And we have
something today that makes what we build together even stronger. I look around now
at our members, and my eyes tear up as I see our incredibly diverse backgrounds, experiences, and talents. We represent so many different perspectives and communities. Yet, ALL OF US have one thing in common, even with those Lions from the 20th century. Every Lion is “willing to serve” and loves our South End. Every. Single. One. As we move forward with a membership that looks more like the South Side of today, I am confident that we will do better and that our neighborhood will gain strength and become more vibrant each and every day.

No matter where you come from, or what you do, if you are willing to serve and you love our neighborhood, we welcome you with open arms. As a Lion you will have an opportunity to help our neighbors grow and thrive. And your roar will be heard for many years to come.

Join us!
Lion Tom Grote

Donna Bates says she’s retired. Don’t believe her for a second.

Although she stopped working 24 years ago as a fiscal officer for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Bates is still a very busy woman. She’s a board member for the Reeb Center and an officer for the Steelton Village Civic Association. She’s a musician and church secretary. She’s a trustee for the Parsons Area Merchants Association and is part of a group that provides scholarships to African American students in Columbus City Schools.

She has been an active member of Columbus Southeast Lions Club since 2019, and this year, she’s the first recipient of the club’s Lifetime Service Award.

“I have this passion to stay busy and to be involved,” she says. “I don’t want to isolate myself, because if you’re not aware of the situation in your neighborhood, you can’t help.”

It’s a philosophy that the lifetime South Side resident saw in action while watching her mother, Carrie Garnes, mobilize a group of neighbors around Barthman Avenue in the early 1970s. They collected petition signatures and were successful in stopping the city’s planned demolition of homes south of Reeb Avenue in order to expand industrial development.

Not only did they save the neighborhood, they also helped secure federal assistance for improvements to the area.

Bates’ mother thought then what she feels now: “It’s about what’s right and wrong, what is good for everybody and not just a few. You can see change in a neighborhood, and when you see it’s on the negative side, you want to do something.”

And, she adds with a smile, “My husband says I don’t know how to say no.”

Southeast Lions President Tom Grote says Bates was an obvious choice for the Lions Club recognition.

“Donna was born on the South Side and, to this day, still lives on the South Side,” he says. “She has spent a lifetime advocating for her neighbors and volunteering to make the neighborhood a better place. We owe her a debt of gratitude for her lifetime of service. We’re so happy to be honoring her with the first-ever Lifetime Service Award from the Columbus Southeast Lions.”

Her connection to the Southeast Lions goes far beyond membership in the service organization. Bates’ childhood home on Barthman Avenue was just half a block away from Southeast Lions Park, a 1.3-acre playground purchased by the club and donated to the City of Columbus in 1946.

It figures prominently in her memories.

“I was there every summer. When it was open, I was there,” she says. “I learned how to play softball there. Art and crafts, everything was there. There were dance parties on the weekend. All of us would participate. It’s how I found out about other cultures.”

“The Lions, even then, reached out in the community,” Bates says now. “Those are the kinds of things that drew me to join. When they do neighborhood cleanups, it’s a memory for me of Saturdays when everybody was out sweeping, raking leaves.”

Her memories aren’t all rosy, though. And although she’s candid about challenges facing the South Side today, Bates’ assessment isn’t bleak.

Remember her mother’s activism in 1972 to stop demolition of people’s homes? It was made especially critical because the practice of redlining, which had been technically outlawed by then but still practiced more subtly, would have kept her parents and other Black homeowners from purchasing homes farther north.

Bates’ beloved neighborhood, then as now, was a multi-racial, multi-ethnic enclave. She lives about six minutes away these days with husband, Wiley. Except for a few years in another part of town – “I didn’t like it,” she says – the couple raised their three sons on the South Side.

Today, Bates says, she’s happy to be working with a new generation of neighbors eager to volunteer their time and put in the effort required to help others. She has noticed that one new family on her old street moved in and began fixing up their house and yard. Soon after, someone across the street started doing the same.

It makes her very optimistic even in times that can seem rather turbulent.

“We can all sit and sulk, but it’s not going to change anything,” she says. “If we can sit around a table and say, ‘What are we going to do that makes a difference,’ you can work together to bring any kind of positive action to where you live.”

It takes a group, Bates has learned. So although her name is on the Lifetime Service Award from the Columbus Southeast Lions Club, she is eager to share the accolades.

“I will be 80 on my next birthday, and I think I still haven’t done as much as other people,” says Bates, even as she concedes that she really is more busy now than when she was working full-time for the state.  

“I just have more mouth,” she says with a laugh. “My dad was the quiet one. He would always say about my mom, ‘There she goes again.’ I think my husband says that, too.”