Participants run through Maria Barnaby Greenwald Park during the 5K Run for Sight, an event organized by the Voorhees-Gibbsboro and Haddonfield Lions Clubs this year to raise awareness for sight preservation and support local initiatives.
The Voorhees-Gibbsboro and Haddonfield Lions Clubs collaborated to bring the annual 5K Run for Sight this year to the community.
It’s an event held to promote awareness of sight preservation and raises funds for initiatives supporting those with visual impairments.
“October is Sight Awareness Month,” Mimi Hadi, secretary of the Voorhees-Gibbsboro Lions Club, said. “The Lions Club has a mission to serve and emphasizes sight preservation initiatives.
“According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 314 million people in the world have a severe visual impairment. With 80% of blindness being preventable, the Lions Club aims to bring awareness to early intervention that can prevent loss of sight, and hopes the 5K Run for Sight can help bring awareness to sight preservation initiatives.”
On Saturday, Oct. 5, runners gathered at Maria Barnaby Greenwald Park in Haddonfield for the race, which was followed by a celebration with food and drinks at Kings Road Brewery, allowing participants to relax and connect after their efforts on the course.
“The Haddonfield Lions Club is the sponsor club for the Voorhees-Gibbsboro Lions Club, which was chartered in March of this year,” Hadi said.
“The ‘5K Run for Sight’ event has been organized by the Haddonfield Lions for the past four years, and this year we thought it would be a great way for our club to learn how to organize this type of event by helping the Haddonfield club with the event planning.”
The community response to Lions Club initiatives in both Voorhees and Haddonfield has been overwhelmingly positive, Hadi said.
Larry Melton, president of the Haddonfield Lions Club, shared that the 5K Run for Sight continues to grow in popularity each year, reflecting the strong community support. He noted there were 50 participants during the first year and that number has grown into the hundreds.
“It’s an activity that brings people together for a variety of reasons—some just to run for exercise—but I must say that the central motivational factor is that ‘feel good’ emotion of doing something good that helps others,” he said. “Last year, we had a family from Philadelphia that came to run, and the mom was going blind. The family supported her, becoming speakers and writers of books about her experience—and sharing it with humor through the eyes of her early teenage son.
“They reached out to become speakers at our club, possible new members, and we all embraced them as a shared experience through the 5K run. People meeting others and sharing in one big event of service—that’s what the Lions are about.”
For those interested in supporting Lions Club initiatives, Hadi encouraged community members to attend local events, including fundraisers and community gatherings. The partnership between the Voorhees-Gibbsboro Lions Club and the Haddonfield Lions Club is still growing, with plans for future collaborations that will benefit the community.
