Butler Lions Club donates chairs, tables to Blind Association
The Blind Association of Butler and Armstrong’s education and meeting room received a significant furniture upgrade Wednesday, March 18, thanks to the support of the Butler Lions Club.
Members of the Lions Club presented Jennifer Bindernagel, executive director of the association, with a large “check” for $3,568.53 — money that was used to purchase 64 chairs, 20 tables and four dollies for the association.
The funds were raised alongside the Lions of Pennsylvania Foundation and a number of Lions Clubs across the region. Butler Lions Club frequently uses the association as a meeting site and workplace.
Bindernagel said the prior equipment had seen decades of wear and tear and desperately needed to be replaced.
“Our old equipment was over 20 years old, and we’ve done cooking classes and art classes, so it was really worn down,” she said. “It’s really nice to have stable, clean equipment to be able to host our groups and classes with,” she said.
She said the association replaced the floors and walls in the education and meeting room in the past months after the building flooded last year, causing the older, stained furniture to stand out.
“It just creates a nice, warm environment for our clients to feel comfortable in,” Bindernagel said.
Connie Ivill, project director for the Butler Lions Club, said the club searched for high-quality and comfortable options when looking for replacements.
“We bought better chairs that are comfortable for people to sit on. There’s a lot of elderly, so they’re easy to get up from. The tables have a lifetime warranty. So we were really pleased,” she said.
Ivill said while the two organizations work together frequently, the Lions Club decided to do this as its way of showing appreciation for the association being a good host.
“We think this is a fabulous organization that does a wonderful job, and we wanted to pay them back somehow,” she said.
She said last year’s flooding was disruptive to the Lions’ operations, but the association was constantly communicating how things were going.
“Jennifer did a beautiful job restoring things and keeping us in the loop and letting us know what was going on while helping us in any way while we were in turmoil,” Ivill said.
