In 1917, 38-year-old Chicago business leader, Melvin Jones, asked a simple and world-changing question – what if people put their talents to work improving their communities? Almost 100 years later, Lions Clubs International is the world's largest service club organization, with 1.35 million members in more than 46,000 clubs and countless stories of Lions acting on the same simple idea: let's improve our communities. In 1925, Helen Keller challenged Lions to become "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness." And we accepted. Today, sight programs remain one of our defining causes.