When asked to describe his home club in Edison, New Jersey, Past Council Chair and Club President Mahesh Chitnis has a ready answer: “My club is running on passion.”
These words perfectly describe the motivation and driving force of the Edison Visionary club. With a vibrant club membership focused on diversity and youth engagement, the Edison Visionary Lions are deeply invested in addressing the needs of their local community. This is what inspired them to step up to an unprecedented challenge—welcoming a refugee family into their community by participating in a brand new, national initiative.
Lions International is proud to serve as a leading partner in a groundbreaking new service opportunity across the United States. The “Engage to Change” pilot co-sponsorship initiative offers Lions clubs a unique opportunity to support refugee families from around the world as they rebuild their lives in their new communities. This co-sponsorship model is a first-of-its-kind opportunity for Lions clubs to partner directly with local refugee affiliates to welcome refugee families and play an impactful role as they start anew.
When the Edison Visionary club learned about this opportunity, they jumped right in. And as the first participating Lions club to welcome a family through this new initiative, they are lighting the path for other clubs to follow their lead.
We spoke with PCC Mahesh Chitnis, who is leading his club’s service in supporting the resettlement journey of a family of seven from Afghanistan. By working closely with staff at Church World Service in Jersey City, PCC Chitnis and his club helped secure permanent housing for the family by providing three months’ rent through a generous grant from Lions Clubs International. They are also helping to furnish their apartment—which marks the first time the family has lived together under one roof, or even in the same country, in over three years.
We asked PCC Chitnis to share his club’s service journey, and the impact this experience has had—not only on the family they’re helping to resettle, but on the club itself.
What appealed to you about this service opportunity?
The driving mission for PCC Chitnis and the Edison Visionary club is to “work on causes that are relevant to families.” When they learned about this opportunity to help a family resettle in their hometown of Edison, New Jersey, they immediately harnessed the club members’ passion for community-building to get the family settled.
“When we had a new family coming to our community, we worked on getting them the support they need—not just from us, but making them self-sufficient in our communities, making sure that they belong here.”
Many Lions in the Edison Visionary club have immigrant backgrounds themselves, and they recognized the importance of not only the logistics of moving to a new country, but acclimating to a new culture. In highlighting this shared experience, PCC Chitnis explained that his club is well positioned to “understand what a new family goes through, so we decided that we should be supporting them.”
How did your club prepare to work with the refugee family?
Right away, the Edison Visionary Lions worked together to find the best approach for taking on this service project. Utilizing a shared WhatsApp chat used by the entire club, they began defining roles: “who is going to take care of school admissions, who is going to take care of day-to-day groceries, getting them furniture.” Even after meeting the family and getting to know them better, the club continues to reassess task delegation to serve the family in the best way possible.
Additionally, the club focused on one of their biggest assets as Lions in their community—drawing on their deep community networks. Working with a variety of local leaders, including the city council, local school board and even the mayor, Edison Visionary has offered an invaluable network of support for the family as they set down their own roots in the community.
Do you have any advice for how Lions clubs can form a successful co-sponsorship group?
“It is a collaboration,” said PCC Chitnis, describing the relationships between his club, the family’s case workers at Church World Service (CWS) in Jersey City and the family themselves. “We are figuring out ways together and how to work with each other. CWS staff is very, very cooperative. It has been a good experience for us so far, and this is just the beginning of the story. We are very happy with the way it’s going so far.”
An important piece to any effective volunteer group is building a strong team. By having a core team of Lions identified at the beginning of their service journey, they can act as key liaisons between the refugee affiliate, club and family. PCC Chitnis suggests that Lions clubs form a core team of six to 10 people to begin working with a refugee family, emphasizing that “the club being structurally ready is very important.”
What would you say to other clubs interested in getting involved?
For PCC Chitnis and his club, there were uncertainties at the beginning of this brand-new service journey—but for him, “the basic thing is, it is not as complicated as we thought.”
In fact, drawing on the support networks embedded in the Engage to Change initiative is one of the most helpful things to the Edison Visionary club in their work to support the family.
“Lions International has been very, very involved,” said PCC Chitnis. “This helps our clubs get that feeling that there are people to support us. This will help in bringing other clubs together.” In the end, PCC Chitnis acknowledged that some clubs, even his, might have doubts in the beginning about what this experience would be like. However, working with the family and seeing firsthand how far they’ve come has made this a truly life changing experience.
“Especially working with the family, it becomes a fulfilling and fun experience. Anybody who wants to be a co-sponsor, they should surely consider that part. The reason most of us join any of the service organizations (like Lions International) is for that fuzzy feeling in the heart—we are doing something for someone. This is probably the peak of that feeling that any one of us would ever get.”
When listening to PCC Chitnis describe the impact of this service opportunity on club members, it is clear how deeply the family has inspired them. The family’s desire to give back to the community and be of service to others, and their dedication and drive for self-sufficiency is palpable. The father of the family has even expressed interest in working in refugee resettlement himself, to help others experiencing displacement and pay the service forward.
Engage to Change is an exciting initiative in its pilot year and is just getting started. For PCC Chitnis and the Edison Visionary Lions, this is not an opportunity they would ever consider passing up. As he succinctly put it, if you are a Lions club with strong knowledge of your community and a passion for helping others, “this is a no-brainer.”
Learn more about the Engage to Change Co-Sponsorship Initiative at Lions International and how clubs like Edison Visionary can provide life-changing service. Let us know if your club is interested in learning more and getting involved at refugee.resettlement@lionsclubs.org.
Alessandra DeChancie is a global advocacy specialist at Lions International and a member of the implementation team that supports the Engage to Change initiative.
