So, it’s the weekend after Thanksgiving. You’re still stuffed from turkey dinner and all the fixins on Thursday, and perhaps turkey soup and sandwiches on Friday. Feel like killing two birds at the same time, so to speak, running off some of those extra helpings and helping out a great cause? Sign up to run in the Race for Vision, sponsored by the West Windsor Lions Club.
After a hiatus of several years, the Thanksgiving Saturday tradition will be returning to West Windsor. The 10 K Race and 2-mile Fun Run will be held on Saturday, November 26, starting at the Dutch Neck Fire House on South Mill Road . All of the proceeds will be going towards the various charities supported by the West Windsor Lions Club, which abides by the motto, “We Serve.”
“People around here have time and talent. It’s a waste not to use them to help people,” declares Frank Schoemann, a resident of the Wellington Estates section of West Windsor, long-time Lions Club member, and its current president.” It makes you feel good to have activities that you enjoy doing help other people.”
Founded in 1917, Lions International took up causes for the blind early on. In 1925 the organization was charged by Helen Keller with the mission of being “Knights of the Blind and the Crusade Against Darkness.” The club is active in 193 countries and boasts some 1.4 million members. The West Windsor branch, chartered in 1952, raises funds year round with 100 percent going to such recipients as Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, New Jersey Eye Research, Katzenbach School for the Deaf, and Deborah Hospital.
As president, Schoemann’s most immediately pressing goal is to expand the club’s membership, which currently stands at just over 40. “We can accomplish more as a group than as individuals. The more members who join, the more activities we can take on, and ultimately, the more people we can help.”
Schoemann came to the Lions Club with a long history of volunteerism. He was a member of the West Windsor Planning Board from 1981 to 1988 and served as chairman of the Site Plan Review Board.
Born in upstate New York just outside Buffalo to a homemaker mother and a father who owned a dental lab, Schoemann graduated from Clarkson University. The chemical engineering major continued his studies at the University of Cincinnati, earning a masters degree there, then worked for Mobil. He moved to West Windsor in 1972 to take a job with FMC in Plainsboro.
His wife, Alice, taught school and now manages the Marlboro Manalapan office for Coldwell Banker. Their daughter, a graduate of High School South, teaches elementary school in Hopewell Valley. Their son, also a graduate of South, is in his third year of a surgical residency. When Schoemann retired from his job in 2000, he found himself wanting to contribute more to the community and found the Lions Club the perfect vehicle for giving back.
In addition to the Race for Vision, the WW Lions Club’s biggest fundraiser is the Renaissance Fair held at Mercer County Park every year, along with the egg hunt in the spring and the art auction. There’s also the annual Pancake Breakfast with Santa to be held this year on Sunday, December 4, at the Community Middle School. This marks the 14th year of this tradition, organized this year by Lions Club member Pat Ward, who encourages everyone to bring cameras. There’s no advance registration required although there is a charge at the door with proceeds benefiting the Lions Club.
As one of the few women members of the formerly all male club, Ward would like to see more women joining the local chapter, which also includes Sue Hsueh, wife of West Windsor mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh. “I want to get the word out that women can join the Lions,” says Ward. “Our membership is as diverse as our community. I love West Windsor and that’s why I love being a West Windsor Lion. I think getting more women involved will help us with the good works that we do.”
Like Schoemann, Ward comes to the West Windsor Lions Club with a long history of volunteerism. She’s been a blood donor and reader for the blind, among other things. She also has what she describes as a “checkered past” that included stints as a director of strategic marketing in the financial world and management consultant in the computer software industry. She had done a pro bono analysis of West Windsor’s technology needs, coming up with recommendations for the township to evolve its technology.
That led, in 2003, to a new career as West Windsor’s Coordinator of Community Development, overseeing engineering, land use, and code enforcement. “Given my checkered past,” she muses, “it’s wonderful to be involved with the township at the age of 57.”
She was also looking for new ways to volunteer and had fallen in with a group that gathered at the Bagel Hole in the Acme shopping center. One of the people in that group was a guy named “Ham” Pakradooni, a loyal Lion himself, who brought Ward into the fold. “I realized that I could bring my background of marketing and fundraising to the group and really help out,” she says.
Ward is married to Robert Prutzman, an independent computer consultant. They live in the Princeton Ivy section of West Windsor with two dogs and a cat. Born and raised in Cranbury and a graduate of Hightstown High School, Ward majored in voice and minored in piano at the Westminster Choir College. In 1967 she wound up at Princeton University in the physics department, a largely male world at that point. Her experience there of “learning how to be one of the guys” has contributed to her enthusiasm to recruit new members of both sexes to the Lions Club.
“The Lions do good work, and it’s not just helping out the blind and hearing impaired, but also supporting scouting and other community groups. I’ve come to know and respect all the work that they do and I’m proud to be a member.”
– Euna Kwon Brossman
The Race for Vision, organized by age groups starting with those aged 14 and under and going to 70-plus. A long sleeve, quality commemorative T-shirt will be given to all pre-registered runners and to post-registered runners, while supplies last. Check-in and post registration 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. 10K Race 9:30 a.m. 2-mile fun run, 9:35 a.m. Race day registration: $25. Visit wwptoday.com/grandprix.pdf for the registration form. Call 609-799-4345.
