People come and they go. Their priorities change for one reason or another. They get sick. They get old. They pass away. This is the hard truth of life. Individuals are impermanent.
But partnerships can endure. Partnerships are bigger than one person.
“The cast of characters changes over time,” says Nancy Messmer of the Clallam Bay Sekiu Lions in Washington. She and her husband, Lion Roy Morris, continue partnerships they helped create in 2007 with the Washington Clean Coast Alliance, now known as Washington CoastSavers. “You have to keep building the bonds of the alliance to continue,” she adds.
The inspiration for CoastSavers began with a Seattle environmentalist who was leading a small group in cleaning up the state’s most remote beaches. He came to Messmer and Morris with the news that he was ill. He didn’t want sympathy; he just wanted to make sure his work continued.
“Don’t let this die,” Nancy Messmer remembers him saying.
… you can get a lot done just by yourself. But you can’t do the really big things.
She and her husband knew that if you’re a hard-working person, you can get a lot done just by yourself. “But you can’t do the really big things,” she adds.
Messmer and Morris met with other Lions, representatives from like-minded volunteer groups, and stewards from the Olympic National Parks. “We got together and everybody in the room realized that nobody was anybody’s boss, so we created an alliance,” says Messmer, environment chair for MD19.
Now, 12 years later, more than a thousand volunteers pick up 34,000-plus pounds of debris along Washington’s Pacific coast for Earth Day each April. And this is just one event. In September, they partner with the Ocean Conservancy for the International Coast Cleanup, and the Clallam Bay Sekiu Lions coordinate the cleanup of the Western Strait of Juan de Fuca, partnering with the local visitor center and the county, and inviting all volunteers to a Lions BBQ afterwards.
“Many things like this happen every day around the world because of valuable partnerships,” says Messmer. “But to keep these projects alive and productive, partnerships have to be able to endure and evolve.”
“There are some people who think that if you go through the process of planning, writing your goals, having your objectives—and you have a coordinator and a website, you’re done,” Messmer says. “But we know that the process of doing big work is a continuous effort. And sometimes it’s big things and sometimes it’s little things, but it’s continuous.”
Explore LION Magazine and read about more ways that Lions are serving around the world.
Learn how your clubs can develop local partnerships to help you accomplish more than ever before.
Joan Cary is the assistant editor for LION Magazine.
