Lexington, SC 07/06/2021 (Paul Kirby) – Last week, the members of the Lexington Sertoma Club moved back to a familiar home of sorts. For the first time in 16 months, the group met face-to-face at the Lizard Thicket on Augusta Road between Oak Grove and Lexington. There, 17 members attended the meeting in person while one participated by Zoom from out of state.
The members in Lexington were there to meet, eat, fellowship, listen to a guest speaker, and get an end of the year recap from outgoing President Matt Quinton. Although these men never stopped working and meeting in some form throughout the pandemic, to the members of the group it sure was good to be home again.
To the Sertomas, this was there "regular meeting format”. In past years, the Lexington Sertoma Club has met on the last Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Lizard’s Thicket. Last week, with no mask, no special restrictions, good food, and friends close by, the member were able to enjoy eating together, planning their future work, and listen to a guest speaker. Things certainly seem to be back to normal.
June’s speaker was Paul Kirby, owner/editor of the Lexington Ledger All Digital Community News. Paul told the club about his passion for writing a clear story and how he got started in the news reporting business. He said he learned to write by reading. He talked about his passion for reporting local Lexington County news and how he felt like Lexington County was not getting good news coverage from the various news outlets, "across the river.”
Paul also said news outlets should try to, "put something good about people in the news and everyone deserves to have their name in the news for the right reason at least once.” The Lexington Ledger, a news site he built in 2014, currently reaches on average more than one million people per month on social media and tens of thousands visit his website each month. Paul's news stories can be read for free at the Lexington Ledger news site www.thelexingtonledger.com.
Although the meeting was a relief from being apart during the pandemic, the Sertoma Club’s members never lost sight in 2020 of their core mission. Each year, the Sertomas’ work to help children who have difficulty with hearing and speech through support and service projects in numerous ways. Although there was a worldwide pandemic raging last year, the Lexington members knew they could not just stop their work, so they got creative.
The Lexington Sertoma Club continued to meet and work toward their goals using alternate formats that included ZOOM meetings, conference calls, and open-air gatherings in place like the Lexington Police Department’s large training room, and Virginia Hylton Park. Of course, they would fellowship, and they were certainly glad to keep in contact with one another throughout the quarantine, but the Sertomas are all about helping people; They still had a mission. This meant they still had to raise funds that would then be used to support key programs throughout the year.
When the pandemic threatened their golf tournament, their most successful fundraising effort, they simply bought a full-page ad in a local newspaper and asked that all their tournament’s sponsors to buy spaces on that. To their surprise, the Sertomas found that to be as effective if not more so than hitting the links as usual.
Throughout one of the toughest years in the history of our country, the Lexington Sertoma Club's were still able to purchase speech and hearing supplies for Lexington School District 1. They also helped support the backpack meals program for Gilbert Primary School, participate in Meals on Wheels deliveries, sponsor a Dixie Youth Baseball team this spring, and raise the money to send six children to Camp Sertoma this summer. That’s a camp specializing in working with the speech and hearing impaired while they enjoy a summer camp experience just like children without these issues.
The June meeting was the last one presided over by Matt Quinton. Matt has served as the president of the Lexington Sertoma Club for the past four years. Through his leadership, the Club has worked, supported causes, and succeeded in many ways.
Now, Buzz Lewis is the new president. In addition to assuming his role as local Lexington Sertoma Club president, Lewis was recently elected as the incoming Atlantic Coast Region Director of Sertoma Inc. for the year 2021-2022. He has a lot of responsibility and big shoes to fill now that Matt’s title has become past president.
To learn more about the Lexington Sertoma Club, check them out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SertomaClubLexingtonSc
PHOTO CAPTION: PHOTO 1 - Lexington Sertoma Club President Matt Quinton (R) passes the gavel to incoming President Buzz Lewis (L) the Club’s regular meeting on June 28, 2021 at Lizard's Thicket located at 4616 Augusta Road
PHOTO 2: Outgoing Sertoma President Matt Quinton and Paul Kirby
PHTO 3 - Paul Kirby speaks to the Lexington Sertoma Club in June of 2021.
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