By Debora Flora
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Midwestern businessmen Allen S. Browne, Melvin Jones and Paul Harris founded service clubs in the early 1900s with similar goals: to connect members of the business community with one another and respond to the broader community’s needs.
Today, the Lions, Kiwanis and Rotary are among the most prominent international service clubs. All three have existed in Youngstown for more than a century, and elsewhere in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys for decades.
This business-service club connection has raised millions of dollars locally to provide food, clothing and medical care to children; promote literacy; support peace at home and abroad; sustain international student exchange programs; extend humanitarian assistance during disasters; and more.
While today’s service clubs welcome people of all professions, business remains at the core. Memberships are waning with population changes and business trends that now include remote work.
Youngstown’s Downtown Lions Club (started in 1920) merged with the South Side Lions 15 years ago because of declining membership. Brenda Rider, the Youngstown Lions Club president, estimates about 40 percent of 77 registered members are active. Service clubs flourished when businesses were concentrated in the downtown district. “Now, people who are working at home aren’t driving 30 minutes for lunch” and a meeting, Rider said.
Younger members recently joined Youngstown Lions, but they are paying their club dues – something employers may have absorbed in the past, Rider observed.
Kiwanis clubs in Youngstown (founded in 1916) and Boardman (1947) merged in 2022, also amid dwindling membership, club President Rob Gardner said. Sixteen of its 25 members are active, and their average age is 50-plus, he noted.
In 2001, when Gardner was employed at Butler Wick securities and trust downtown, he attended a Kiwanis meeting at a client’s request. He remains involved after experiencing the club’s community impact and growing closer to other members.
“It’s a benefit for a company because they are showing they are good neighbors, are about the community,” Gardner said. “Nobody wanders into Kiwanis off the street. They are usually representing a company.”
Gerri Jenkins, new president of the 110-year-old Rotary Club of Youngstown, says she is considering after-work options in addition to the club’s weekly meetings at noon Wednesdays. “It’s about outreach, members inviting friends and new businesses,” she said. “We want to make sure new businesses or those not participating learn about [Rotary].”
It is the legacy of these service clubs that deserves our time and support.
Rotary focuses on promoting peace; fighting disease; providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene; saving mothers and children; supporting education; growing local economies; and protecting the environment. Local Rotary clubs participate in the annual Operation Warm program to provide winter coats to school-age children and the international End Polio Now campaign to eradicate the crippling but preventable infectious disease. Proceeds from Youngstown Rotary’s annual Groundhog Craft Beerfest are distributed as grants to local nonprofit organizations that work within the areas of focus. Business sponsorships make Beerfest even more successful.
Boardman’s Memorial Day parade and ceremony originated in 1904. Kiwanis has been its lead organizer since the late 1970s, Gardner said. The Kiwanis Club of Boardman-Youngstown also manages the Eisenbraun Books for Kids Project, which gives new reading books to students in Youngstown and Boardman schools in memory of member Tom Eisenbraun. The club provided more than 11,000 books valued at $20,000 during the 2024-25 school year, he added.
Lions clubs support special-needs populations, community nonprofits, and especially people with vision care needs. Lions will pay for eye surgery and glasses, Rider said. Lions also collect used eyeglasses at public library branches and certain optical offices for refurbishing at a facility in southern Ohio, she said.
For 63 years, the Youngstown Lions Club has hosted a Turtle Derby fundraiser – using live turtles in the past, and robotic ones today, Rider emphasized. The club estimates it has raised more than $1 million throughout its history to support local causes.
The Lions’ annual Christmas party at the Saxon Club in Austintown is for children in Mahoning County who are blind or have mental or physical challenges. Attendance reaches about 500, Rider said. Club members serve them breakfast, and each child receives three gifts wrapped by members.
These tangible activities bring the intangible benefits of service. The Lions’ Christmas party “brings out lots of members who don’t attend meetings,” Rider said. “We are receiving so much more in smiles and tears and hugs.”
“I really do want to make a difference,” Rotary’s Jenkins said. “I have a responsibility to this area. I grew up here.”
“Can you really put your hand on the benefit of knowing that you’re doing something completely for others?” Gardner said. “If anyone gives a few years, [service] just gets into your bones. It is in my heart now.”