One agent’s desire to help others is inspiring a new generation to serve their local community.
Age is just a state of mind, says Michele Alexandrou, who, through her tireless service as president of the Burnside Lions Club, is breathing new life into the ageing group.
It’s this commitment to her local community that saw the LJ Hooker Adelaide City/St Peters/Glynde agent take home the top prize for community service at last Saturday’s awards night.
Ms Alexandrou joined the club as one of its youngest members in 2009 and, over the past two years as its president, has established its online presence, attracting younger members to join.
“A girl I know, her dad just died and she’s finding it hard, so I took her to the Lions Art show, and she’s decided she wants to join,” Ms Alexandrou says. “She’s 26, and there are quite a few other young ones joining as well. Our average age is about 80, so the good news is now we don’t have to close the club.”
Ms Alexandrou says her work for the club averages out to about 16 hours a month, but is much more at this time of year, and that the work the group does reaches further into the local community than many would have thought.
“We have people pop into our garage sale who are dying, so we pop out and visit them and do lots of little behind-the-scenes things like that,” she says. “It’s really rewarding work and it brings people together. I’ve grown a lot as a person and developed a whole new set of skills through doing this role.”
The club last year raised about $38,000, all of which was pumped straight back into the local eastern suburbs community.”
“One of the main charities we support is the Burnside Hospital because they’re privately funded,” Ms Alexandrou says. “We’ve helped build their oncology ward over the past 20 years and last year gave them a cheque for $17,000. We also support the Burnside CFS and have built them a kitchen and bought them equipment. I just really love seeing all our hard work make such a difference in our community.”
Article written by Tom Bowden, originally published in the SA Weekend Magazine (2 November 2019)