Lions Club International is a worldwide service club organization whose members have been helping others for close to 100 years. With over 1.4 million members and tens of thousands of branches located across the globe in over 200 countries, they are reportedly the largest service club organization in the world.

Guam is no exception.

Lions Club was founded in 1917 by a man named Melvin Jones. His personal code of “You can’t get very far until you start doing something for somebody else,” has since then spread throughout his organization as a guiding principle for others to follow.

Jones specifically wanted the lion as the organisation’s symbol because he believed it stood for strength, courage, fidelity and vital action. Later, it has come to also represent the idea of citizenship as an anagram for: Liberty, Intelligence, Our Nation’s Safety. Their website notably emphasizes the significance of fidelity as it stands for loyalty to friends and their selves.

Guam hosts several Lions Club branches, each with their own unique second name to set them apart from the rest. Tamuning has the Stars and the Galaides and Sinajana has the Sunshine. In addition, there are the Latte Stones, Masters and Harmony among others. Though their names may be different, they all share the same motto of “We serve.”

“We’re just ordinary people who want to help,” said Jose Sumbang, former president of the Stars Lions Club. “We all have our own lives to live and things that we do. As Lions, we gather together because we all want to give back in some way. And we make sure to have fun and make good friends in the process.”

“I joined Lions Club with my friends and I’m glad to say that I’ve made many more since,” said Jocelyn Herrera, a fellow Stars Lions Club member. “It’s tiring, but working together with everyone makes it feel much easier.”

The work of the Lions Club is not limited to anything specific. As long as it helps the community, they are on it. Just last month, members collected and donated eyeglasses to recycle and give to children who are in need of them.

“It’s rarely easy for everything to go smoothly,” Sumbang said. “Unexpected situations happen all the time. Sometimes people cancel at the last minute or there’s something that’s just not going right or people just don’t have the time. Still, we try our best and hope that it’s good enough. If not for our sake, then for the people we want to help.”

“Between my job and classes, it’s not easy for me to fit in Lions Club meetings and activities,” said Dong Quizon, a proud member of the University of Guam branch. “Sometimes I just want to skip just to catch up on my sleep, but I joined for a reason.”

Anyone is welcome to join–both as full-time members or as volunteers. All that it takes is to speak with and get an introduction from one of the current members. There are more than 20 branches on island alone, meaning that there’s plenty of opportunities.

Lions Club members are adults who seek to serve. For like-minded youths and young adults, there are the Leo Clubs which serve a similar purpose, but with the added goals of professional and personal development.

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Prior to the event, the organisers were concerned that the weather was going to be postpone or even cancel it. Fortunately, the sky cleared up before the event was set to start and, with the determined efforts of the PALS society and volunteers, it went off without a hitch.

This year, 15 teams participated in the competition.

The challenge is designed to test not only their athleticism and their skills in planning, quick thinking and teamwork. They sprinted to the scattered stations to complete as many missions as they could in the time limit.

Missions included the zombie version of “pin the tail on the donkey,” mixing food colouring and digging in a mystery box among others.

Each mission required a certain number of members. Only one mission could be done at a time. Teams spent most of their time running back and forth from the safe zone to report and regroup.

Each competitor had five strips of caution tape–serving as flags–that the zombies would try to steal. According to the game rules, losing all five strips would lead to their elimination. Individual zombies could only take one flag at a time. Hordes had no such restriction placed on them.

Due to the physical nature of the challenge, safety was an important concern. The rules discouraged roughhousing and prohibited violence. Referees and facilitators made sure no foul play or injuries occurred.

Unfortunately, some students’  enthusiasm got the better of them and that lead to some problems. Some competitors abused the safety zones, while some zombies didn’t follow the one flag limit. Both sides had cases of  unnecessary roughness.

PALS Society confronted the individuals responsible, but only after the incidents had occurred.

“Even though I had fun tonight, hearing about these problems bothered me,” one of the participants said. “Even though I only heard about it, it made me think that the challenge looked disorganized.”

However, that same enthusiasm led to a fierce competition. This year had a six-way tie for the last two spots in the top five after the first phase. Unfortunately, only five could advance, so there was a bonus challenge to determine who was moving on.

When asked for advice for next year’s challenge, a member of one of those six teams, J. Thomas Jackson said, “Just run a lot.”

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Flores was born on Guam and possesses a great love for literature, both reading and writing, as well as a passion for teaching. As a child, she was unusual among her peers in that, while they couldn’t wait for summer vacation to start, she couldn’t wait for it to end.

“I was one of those students who loves going to school,” she said. “I remember sitting there during summer vacation and watch the clock because I could hardly wait for school to open again.”

She looks at these memories as the starting point of where she got to today.

Even after earning her Bachelor’s degree in English, Flores felt the call of academia and returned to school for more. Thus she got a Master’s degree before moving on to get her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

“There comes a point when you feel used up, a car running out of gas,” Flores said. “Then I need to go back and do some more studying and research, kind of refueling the tank.”

Flores found herself drawn back to Guam for her work in the field of Pacific Island Literature. She considers herself to be the type of scholar who is where the action is, hence her decision to return. With her love for learning and teaching, taking on her post at UOG’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences only seemed natural.

She is currently working on several projects. The most prominent is an anthology of native writers for use in future semesters. She also hopes to one day release a poetry memoir.

“It’s okay for other people to tell our story, but that’s not good enough,” Flores said. “We have to tell our stories too. If you only get our stories from outsiders’ perspectives, it’s a very one-sided view.”

Flores uses the following quote by James Baldwin to describe her feelings on Literature:

“You write to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that that literature is indispensable to the world… The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”

“There’s another part of writing that’s like playing the piano,” she said. “You could learn to play the piano to bring joy to people and to be helpful. I play the piano, but I don’t play well enough to play for anyone else. I play enough for my own enjoyment, and I think writing is the same way. It has a cathartic purpose. Even though some of my poems will not see the light of day, they have served their purpose by allowing me to begin to articulate an experience.”

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