The International Association of Lions Clubs began as the dream of Chicago businessman, Melvin Jones. He believed that local business clubs should expand their horizons from purely professional concerns to the betterment of their communities and the world at large.

Jones' own group, the Business Circle of Chicago, agreed and after contacting similar groups around the country, an organizational meeting was held on June 7, 1917, at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago. A national convention of the "Association of Lions Clubs" was held in Dallas in October of that year, approving a constitution, by-laws, objects and code of ethics.

In 1925, Helen Keller addressed the Lions at their annual International Convention challenging them to become "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness." Since that time, service to the blind and visually impaired has become on of the association's most significant activities. That crusade has resulted in the establishment of International SightFirst, in 1990, an aggressive global blindness prevention program.

Forty million people are blind, yet 80 percent of all blindness is preventable or reversible. International Sightfirst is an unprecedented program which joins leading blindness experts, blindness prevention organization, governments and Lions in an effort to establish long-term solutions in eliminating blindness.