Rocky Run middle school student Jasmin Yoon has been named a merit award winner in the 28^th  annual Lions International Peace Poster Contest.   Jasmin’s winning poster was chosen for its originality, artistic merit and portrayal of this year’s theme “Share Peace.” She is one of 23 merit award winners chosen from approximately 400,000 entries drawn by children ages 11 to 13 from 65 countries.

As a merit award winner, Jasmin will be presented with a cash award of $500 and a certificate of achievement by the Fairfax Lions Club, local sponsor of the contest.  Each year, Fairfax Lions sponsor local youth in the Peace Poster Contest, intended to foster a spirit of peace and international understanding in young people worldwide.  In both local and state judging of contest entries, Jasmin won other cash awards.

Fairfax Lions are proud of Jasmin for her abilities and accomplishments, as we are of all local youth who submit entries for the contest.

The Fairfax Lions Club awarded this year $1000 to support vision impaired children in Vietnam.  Global Comunity Service Foundation reports progress:

Skill training for 15 visually impaired children from Quang Tri Blind School was initiated before Lunar New Year in Vietnam. It includes two main components:

• Training on food making
• Training on incense making

The objective of these two types of training are:

• To equip the children with skills on making basic food that can serve in the family
• To provide them with a vocational skill in incense making
• To build confidence for the children in doing cooking at home in order to support their family
• To change the behavior of the parents towards the children
• To prepare them with a job skill for their future

The project will last for 2 months with the first months dealing with food making and the second for incense making.

At the moment, the first component was initiated with some food made for Tet (Vietnamese New Year). The teachers taught the children on making pickles from papaya, chili, carrot and mustard green. The process includes washing, cutting, bottling and cleaning up. The children were very excited to take part in this training since they did not think they could do the cooking before. This training will repeat for one month to make sure the children are able to master the process and can perform it back home with assistance from family members.

The next component will be implemented in March for incense making training.

On Feb 6 and 7, the Fairfax Lions Club participated in Fairfax City’s Chocolate Lover’s Festival.  We met many neighbors in our community, and provided free vision screening for adults and children.  Our table was located in the Fairfax City Library.  We used the “Spot Vision Screener” – a handheld, portable device to quickly and easily detect vision issues on people from age 6 months to adult.  We screened 103 people (including 59 children) and referred 19 for follow-up to address vision issues.  It was a grat day for Fairfax Lions to help serve our community.

Vision screening in action: 

Volunteer Lions: