Shrinking service clubs compete for recruits’ time

There are 1.4 million Lions Club members around the world, but only two show up to the Paw Paw Patch twice a month for the Homewood Metro Lions Club meetings.

Wayne Dunlap and Max Herzel have been Lions for nearly 40 years. They’ve watched their club dwindle from a healthy, full organization with a waiting list down to a total roster of seven. That includes Dunlap, Herzel and their wives and kids.

“After many good years of a lot of good work we did, the old-timers passed on, and little by little, they fell by the wayside,” Herzel said.

The Homewood Metro Lions are an extreme example of what several Homewood service organizations face: the continual treadmill of recruiting and keeping members. Bo Duke, the past president of Homewood’s Rotary Club, said recruitment is “the toughest part,” and he sees other Rotary Clubs across the state with similar struggles. The Rotary has about 50 members right now.

“Every year we try to gain membership. It seems like somebody moves away, or they go, or they change jobs and then move farther out, and we just lose people. So we really want 70 or 80 members, but you’ve got to work hard to keep the ones you have,” Duke said.

On the other hand, some of Homewood’s service clubs are seeing their highest  indicating the problem is not universal.

RACE AGAINST TIME

When Dunlap and Herzel hold their Metro Lions meetings, they talk about the service projects and fundraisers they’d like to accomplish. With just their two families though, Herzel said there’s “not a heck of a lot” they can accomplish.

“It’s been a struggle for us the last couple of years because of lack of membership, and we cannot do too many major projects because we do not have enough hands to do the projects,” he said.

The two Metro Lions do hearing aid and glasses recycling work and hold an annual pecan-sale fundraiser. If they can get their membership up again, they’d like to get involved in more of the international level projects, including volunteering or fundraising for sight and hearing causes, world hunger and river blindness. They would also like to provide a free document shredding day in Homewood, they said.

Their goal is 30 new members. That also would allow Dunlap and Herzel to retire from their active role in the club. It’s an uphill battle, though.

Dunlap recalled a membership interest event where they personally invited 70 people, along with state-level Lions Club officials. Not one of the invitees attended.

“I guess we didn’t do our job,” Dunlap said.

Dunlap and Herzel see the problem partly as a matter of time and partly as an age divide. Frequently, Herzel said, the people he invites tell him they don’t have a single hour to spare.

“The only thing is the old-timers are getting old, and the young-timers are not interested. That’s the problem we’re experiencing right now,” Herzel said.

“So many younger families, they’re living their childhood vicariously through their children — ballgames and dance and cheerleading and all that kind of stuff — and it’s always, ‘I don’t have time,’” Dunlap said.

The Rotary Club has more diversity in its members’ ages, but Duke, a 14-year Rotarian, agreed that time is the critical obstacle for many potential members.

“It seems like service clubs now are harder to maintain because people either don’t have the time or the want or the need,” he said. “I think everybody’s busier, and if I hadn’t been in it for 14 years, would I start now? I don’t know, because I am busy. But if you’re a business person, you’re going to be busy. That’s what you do.”

The Rotary Club is involved in a variety of projects, from an annual scholarship for Homewood High School students to fundraisers for the Homewood Public Library, the Lakeshore Foundation, the Exceptional Foundation and a well-digging project in Africa. Duke said for him, it’s about making the Rotary Club a habit and something he has set his mind to stay involved with.

Like the Metro Lions, the Rotary mainly adds members through word of mouth. Duke said the club needs both to provide something valuable to its members and also make sure the people it recruits are the right ones who are willing to give back.

“We’re just going to have to keep pushing for new members,” Duke said.

The Homewood-Mountain Brook Kiwanis Club is also trying to reach its former heights. Club President Tom Callison said the Kiwanis experienced a significant drop in membership during the economic recession that began in 2007. The club has rebounded somewhat since 2011 and added six new members this year, with a total of about 50. Many of these newer members are younger, which Callison said is a “bright spot” for the club.

“We’d like to fill the room,” Callison said of the Kiwanis’ weekly meetings. “I’d love to see it at 80 members and up, but we have to do it just one new member at a time.”

Successful service

While the Metro Lions, Rotary and Kiwanis look at new ways to recruit, the Knights of Columbus men’s service organization, based at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, has 190 members on the rolls and continues to grow.

The Knights are a faith-based service group and are involved in many projects initiated by their different members, with the largest one being the annual barbecue and rummage sale that OLS hosts for the Fourth of July. Member Adam Morel said there’s a core group of 60 to 75 people regularly involved.

“We are in a growth mode right now, which is great. We’ve got a lot of folks really joining the Knights,” member Chad Gentry said. “It’s definitely growing, and it’s exciting, and the spirit is there right now.”

It wasn’t always this way. Gentry said he has heard from his predecessors that involvement was really low about a decade ago, and the Knights had difficulty pulling off their signature event.

“There were a couple of Fourth of Julys where [the two leaders] looked at each other and go, ‘I hope one of us doesn’t fall out, or this thing is not going to get pulled off,’” Gentry said.

Gentry said a series of more engaging leaders has helped bump up those numbers.

Morel said the Knights also have the advantage of being recognizable through their July 4 events and involvement in the Homewood Christmas Parade. Being a Catholic organization, Morel said that faith element and friendships between church members also makes it easier to recruit.

“I think the year in, year out, decade in, decade out human nature is people want to serve. I really don’t think that’s changed much. But I think what can change a number [of members] is if you can get somebody to come and then you actually give them the opportunity to serve, and you actually get them doing something right away that they think matters, then they stay,” Morel said.

The Homewood City Schools Foundation, though not a traditional service group, is also seeing an influx of volunteer interest. HCSF Board Member Amy McRae said there are 24 volunteer board members who help fundraise for the schools and host events such as Homewood Grown.

The Foundation is looking at ways to make more opportunities available for residents who want to support the Foundation. McRae said that with many young families, the schools are a central part of life for many residents, making them more likely to want to serve.

“Homewood’s such a great community that everybody is willing to help. We have a very strong, active, working board, and we’re just excited about the people that show interest, the people that we ask that they’re interested. Everybody seems to be very excited to help the school system,” McRae said.

Other service organizations, such as the Friends of the Homewood Public Library and the West Homewood Lions Club, aren’t growing but have enough members to keep their enrollment steady and continue their community projects.

Laura Graham, who works with the Friends of the Library, said it’s easy to find new volunteers because they can recruit from the readers who shop in their bookstore.

Leroy Meachum, a 25-year member of the West Homewood Lions, said his club has seen a slight increase over time, despite some ups and downs, and has managed to counteract the effects of members moving or passing away.

“It used to be an older generation of members, but now certainly our club is much younger than it used to be,” Meachum said.

Strategies for change

Even the struggling groups said they are optimistic about seeing growth in the future.

The Rotary and Kiwanis are focusing on bringing in interesting, community-minded speakers to their regular meetings and showing potential members the ways they can help their city and broader community.

Callison said the Kiwanis also are starting some social events for members.

“I think all service organizations have that issue, but we’re striving to give members something to look forward to,” Callison said. “So we’re on the right trajectory.”

Dunlap and Herzel said they’ve been talking to other Alabama Lions Clubs who have successfully grown, including one man who started a club by recruiting 20 people single-handedly. That man will be coming to give them advice, and Dunlap said they want to hold a membership drive in the fall.

If they can reach their goal of 30 members, some of the projects that Dunlap and Herzel talk about over their dinners at the Paw Paw Patch can become a reality.

“We sit in here with a lot of ideas, and as soon as we get that membership up to a reasonable amount, we’ll be able to do a lot of things,” Herzel said.