WHAT IS THE MOTTO OF LEOISM?
To promote service activities among the youth of the community which will develop the individual qualities of Leadership, Experience and Opportunity. To unite its members in friendship, fellowship and mutual understanding.
The first Leo Club was founded in 1957 by Jim Graver, the coach of the AbingtonHigh School, Pennsylvania baseball team. He was an active member of the Glenside Lions Club. The club was founded with the help of William Ernst, another local Lion. It adopted the high schools colours of maroon and gold. The club also created the acronym Leadership, Equality, Opportunity for the word Leo. The word equality was later changed to Experience.
In 1964 the Leo Club Program became a sponsored program of the Lions District. It grew beyond Pennsylvania and the United States of America. By 1967 the program had grown to over 200 clubs in 18 countries and had become an official youth program of Lions Clubs International. In the following year, the Leo Club Program spread rapidly, more than quadrupling in size, to 918 clubs in 48 countries by the end of 1968.
Leo clubs make local communities better places to live through a diverse array of community service projects and fellowship events which are conducted on a regular basis. It believes in getting people under one banner to help the society as a whole.
The basic structure of a Leo Club is as follows: