1. Tom & Sherilyn Blase, Chairman of the Board
2. Ann Ward, 2nd Vice-Chairman
3. TLC Professional Staff present
4. TLC Med Staff present, Drs. Ponder, Peter Kwan, Mel Kwan
5. Lions, former summer staff members & campers

Tonight is a celebration of you, for without you, TLC would not be who we have become.

One of my greatest privileges in life, has been to have been eyewitness to the amazing acts of courage, self-sacrifice, drive, grit, blood sweat and tears that those who call Texas Lions Camp their Camp have so willingly given. For you did not shrink back from the invitation to give of your time, talents, and treasure, but you charged ahead where others have feared to travel. As you undoubtedly know, courage is not the absence of fear, but the will to move forward despite being afraid.

I am sure that if I polled each of you, whether a camper or a staff member, your first trip through the gates of Texas Lions Camp, were as terrifying for you as it was for me.

Stories:

1. Eric Paslay
2. Nathan at Camp Suddenly

TLC has taught me many things, but two things stand out as most important:

1. Each of us has a personal mission, something only we can offer the world around us at the time appointed, in the way that we have to offer it.
2. The second is that it is possible to miss your calling in life if you don't engage. You can sit it out…

No one is going to make you engage your calling. No one is going to make you get off the sideline and in fact, there are those who will even actively work to keep you there either by intention or omission.

I stand before you tonight gratefully in awe of you…when called upon, you willingly and courageously rose to the challenge and gave of yourself to see that Texas Lions Camp arrived at her Next-Level. Whether as a camper or a staff member, or as Lion, or some combination of these, you did the unthinkable, you dared to count the needs of someone else as more pressing and important than your own. You spoke the right message at the right time in the right way, so that someone other than yourself would be the beneficiary.

For that reason and so many others, I celebrate you.

Questions are powerful things.

I thought I knew TLC history well, but having now lived through the COVID pandemic, I have a much better understanding of the visceral courage involved to dare to step up in the face of such obstacles. We all now understand the unique issues surrounding the known, unknown, interpreted, and misinterpreted societal issues arising from being thrust into the unknown of a new, potentially life-altering and sometimes fatal consequence of a viral pandemic.

In the 1940’s, Lions asked the right question in response to the polio epidemic, “what are we going to do about the children.” This question was asked despite the cascading and seemingly unsurmountable questions yet to be answered were the natural result. All the Lions had was an idea and a nagging reality that they DID NOT have any of the things required, such as: a facility, staff, budget, name, structure, or reputation by which to meet the need. In short, there was no shortage of needs that would have to be met before the answer to the question of what they were going to do about the children could be met.

Not to mention, their answer to the question involved cohabiting children, during the summer, in proximity during the height of viral outbreak specifically aimed at all these factors – children, summer, and proximity.

As if those factors were not daunting enough, the land that had been proposed as the location of Texas Lions Camp, was surplus land owned by the Veteran’s Administration, General Services of the United States. Unphased, Lions began the process of lobbying congress, which took months of hard work, travel to and from Washington, connections, and strategizing culminating in no less than two (2), acts of congress. Having been challenged by General Services to raise $100,000 within 6 months, the Lions set about their next great hurdle of garnering support for their idea to be adopted as a Statewide Project of Texas Lions and raised the required funds by the deadline.

All these factors and more were courageously undertaken by volunteers and on April 4, 1949, the Texas Secretary of State signed and returned TLC’s Articles of Incorporation (TLC’s birth certificate), and TLC was born.

Of course, this is only where the work started and a great deal of fundraising and construction lie ahead – which continues through today – but because of their fortitude, the question as to “what we were going to do about the children” has been answered.

Today, the Texas Lions Camp has grown from an idea to a net worth of more than $50 million dollars and is comprised of more than 515 acres and 55 buildings on a beautifully maintained natural area that is encircled by an 8’ fence. We are truly a small city on the edge of a city that is dedicated to the enjoyment of Texas children and their families.

Our founders would likely be amazed by what they set in motion, none of which would have continued if it were not for those who likewise embraced their own mission and courageously stepped into the unknown, what I call your mission and calling. For that, each of you who have answered the call have my undying admiration, respect, and gratitude.

Video presentation

Teddy Roosevelt said what has become one of my favorite quotes as he summarized what it means to embrace your calling courageously and aggressively in life:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.