Gail Hamilton is a highly acclaimed professional speaker, singer, musician, and author. She shares her message of bravery, empowerment, gratitude, and positivity to audiences nationwide. Born ten weeks premature and weighing a mere 2.5 pounds, Gail Hamilton and her twin brother lived in separate incubators for six weeks with continual 100% pure oxygen. Though her twin was not affected, this high oxygen level damaged Gail’s eyes and left her with partial vision. It was during elementary school that her eyes developed cataracts; decreasing sight to total blindness. Becoming totally blind is when Gail’s imagination and inner vision took flight. During this time of transformation, classical music became the center of her world.
Despite personal challenges in her life, in high school, Gail discovered her passion for singing and continued her mastery of the piano. Gail has taught piano lessons for nearly 40 years! She graduated college with a degree in Voice and then obtained her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Master of Arts degree in Transpersonal Psychology. Gail credits her voice teacher, Margaret Thuenemann, as being the first person, she met who viewed her as a singer who happened to be blind, and not as a blind
singer. This new perspective intensified her longing to spread her wings.
After college Gail moved to Colorado. While the next 25 years would prove to be challenging, through the help of others she began her most meaningful life transformation, “… believing that my desire to fly must be bigger than my fear of falling,” she says. Gail changed from being a victim of her own circumstances to becoming the creator of her destiny. She stopped blaming and started taking responsibility, and aligned totally with faith, attitude, and action.
Denver Lions gathered for Service Tuesday at Savio House. At this event, we sorted over 1000 recycled glasses. By sorting the glasses, the team we more easily find glasses that will fit the person needing the glasses. The glasses will be used at the New American School on Thursday, February 28. Helping the at this event were Lions Emerson, Chuck Anderson, Dee Pape, Sally Hooks and her grandson John, David and Ann Lambert, Deny Holmes, Myrna Adkins, Bill Henderson, Fletcher Brown, Steve and Susy Kinsky. Thanks to all.
Do you know a graduating high school senior wanting to apply for the Colorado Lions Foundation Scholarship? The Foundation awards four $2500 scholarships. The deadline for the online application is April 1, 2019.
Scholarship Eligibility
To be considered for an Educational Scholarship, an individual must be:
A legal Colorado resident High School Graduating Senior
Accepted for enrollment at an accredited Institution of Higher Learning
The link for all the details and the online application is: http://colionsfoundation.org/scholarship.php
Denver Lions will be conducting vision screening and providing eyeglasses as needed. The eyeglasses are from the Lions Recycle for Sight program. New America School is a charter school for immigrants and refugees. Patients will mostly be students and their families. Volunteers will help with intake; acuity measurements using eye charts; refractions, and the dispensing of eyeglasses. CU medical students and residents will accompany us.
Date: Thursday, February 28, 2019
Time: 4 to 8 pm
Location: New America School, 9125 E 7th Pl, Building 905, Denver 80230
I would like to invite you to a Membership Growth workshop on Saturday, March 23rd at the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank auditorium (starting at 9 a.m.) you will have a 3 E experience! You may be asking yourself what is a 3 E experience? (1) First E is you are going to be entertained with EXCITING new skills of attracting new members. (2) The second E is you will be EDUCATED with methods to retain your Club members and (3) you are going to leave ENERGIZED!
For additional information please contact: MD6 GMT/PDG2 Lion Kenneth Moore (phone:970-330-4718; email: gillionken@hotmail.com
On a recent trip to Haiti, Lion Brian Henderson ran into a fellow Lion, Lion Louis “Butch” Veazey, from Hendersonville, TN. He was in Cap Haitian for a Lions’ Mission Trip eye clinic. Brian told him about our Lions’ Den and invited him to visit us sometime when he’s in town. Pictured with an American Baptist missionary, Nzunga Mabudiga, who hosted the delegation with whom Lion Brain was traveling.
Lions Club of Denver Completes Ethiopia Eyesight Screening Campaign
The Lions Club of Denver in Colorado, USA, arrived in Ethiopia on January 25, 2019, to conduct an eyesight screening campaign. Six Lions made the journey to Africa and were accompanied by another eight volunteers from the United States; four members of the group from the US are of Ethiopian descent.
The campaign focused its service mostly on schoolchildren and other residents in the towns of Ebinat, Arba Minch, Shashamane and Shone. In all, we saw 736 patients, 340 of whom were children. Denver Lions brought 4,400 pairs of eyeglasses collected by the Colorado Lions Recycle for Sight program. The schoolchildren and others were tested and then fitted on-site with eyeglasses, as needed. The group saw nearly 720 patients over 8 days of testing.
Denver Lions volunteers included:
Past President Myrna Ann Adkins, past Executive Director of The Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning in Denver and a participant in screening campaigns in Ecuador and Mongolia;
President Susy Osorio-Kinsky and Past President Steve Kinsky, who have conducted eyesight screening campaigns in Ecuador, Senegal, Rwanda, Nepal, Mongolia and Mexico; and
Mel Tewahade of Ethiopia, who was the primary organizer, with help from his Ethiopian contacts Adu Worku in Ebinat and Pochi Seifu in Shone, among others;
Past President Ned Nagle, who has also participated at screenings in Ecuador and Mongolia; and
Carla Osorio, Susy’s daughter and a Latino Lions Branch Club member who has also participated at screenings in Haiti, Senegal and Mongolia.
Other volunteers included notably Dr Sue Benes, an ophthalmologist from Buena Vista, Colorado, who spent much of her career in academia at Ohio State University and has done research and clinical work around the world in places like Kenya, Ecuador and the Middle East. Also participating were Olivia Bartlett, RN, Dr Benes’ daughter; Hilleary Waters, newspaper owner and friend of Lion Bob Sweeney; and Emebet Getahun, a Denver resident and work colleague of both Myrna Ann and Susy at Spring Institute.
Several of Mel Tewahade’s friends and clients also participated: Johnny Corbin of Tuscumbia, Alabama, the hometown of Helen Keller; Brian Penick, a radiology consultant from Delta, Colorado; Ethiopian Abby Tizale, RN; Ethiopian KB Workie, a professional basketball player; and mortgage broker Lainey Hamrick.
Lions Club of Denver volunteers were perhaps once again motivated by the adage: ”In life, you need to breathe to survive, but you need to see to thrive” and the byline: “Seeing the World with Different Eyes.” They saw this recent trip to Ethiopia as a way to demonstrate the Club’s capacity for bringing different cultures of the world together through humanitarian service.
In addition to their humanitarian work, the volunteers also found time to visit multiple tourist attractions in Northern Ethiopia, including Emperor Fasilides’ Castle in Gondar, Simien National Park, World Heritage sites in Denver’s Sister City Axum, and Saint George Church in Lalibela. On their final night in Ethiopia they were hosted for dinner by the Lions Club of Addis Ababa Host.
The team of volunteers spent more than 3 weeks in total in Ethiopia.
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