This is the second in a series of features on the Bluffton Pedestrian and Bike Pathway Steering Committee. For previous stories click here.

An ambitious goal: Encircle Bluffton with a pedestrian and bike pathway. The goal's achievements occur one step at a time, through the work of the Bluffton Pedestrian and Bike Pathway Steering Committee.

The impetus launching the project began with a challenge picked up by Dick Ramseyer, president of the Bluffton Lions Club from 2008-10.

"The Lions District Governor challenged the Bluffton Lions Club to initiate a community project," said Ramseyer, who heads the current Pedestrian and Bike Pathway Steering Committee.

"That was the spark that drove our club to develop two signature programs. One was a funding source, which became the Bluffton Lions Foundation's charity Corvette raffle," said Ramseyer. "The other was a community improvement project, now known as the Bluffton Pedestrian and Bike Pathway Project."

In the fall of 2009, the Lions pledged $4,500, over half of the money needed, to fund a Bluffton pathway study. In March of 2009 Bluffton council held a pedestrian - bikeway master plan hearing.

Bluffton resident Neil Hauenstein of Bassett Associates, landscape architects of Lima, designed a plan accepted by the Bluffton council. Fred Rodabaugh, Bluffton mayor, appointed a committee, to see the project to completion.

The steering committee's (now renamed the Pathway Board) purpose identifies stages of the pathway based on the master plan. It seeks funding sources, grants, and creates planning steps and pre-building processes. Committee proposals go to the Bluffton council for final approval.

The committee includes Ramseyer, chair, with Greg Denecker, Dima Snyder, Jim Harder, John Rich, Laura Voth, Fred Steiner and ex-officio member Jamie Mehaffie, village administrator.

Meeting once a month, the group identified the need for the project's first phase. It connects the Maple Crest and Riverbend residential areas to Bentley Road. Phase II hopes to connect the County Line Road area to the I-75 restaurant cluster.

Additional phases will follow once these two, deemed the most crucial, are underway.

As a point of history, a 1980s effort for a pathway program attempted, but failed, to create a path from Bluffton to Pandora using the abandoned A.C.&Y. Railroad. Another bike path plan, connecting Bluffton Community Swimming Pool to the village park succeeded largely with donated funds and volunteer help. Today that pathway is known as the Triplett Bike Path.

Bluffton Lions Club Foundation

A crucial piece of the current pathway project is the Bluffton Lions Club Foundation. In 2010 the Foundation, a 501 (C) (3) public charity, formed as a sister organization to the Bluffton Lions Club.

Ramseyer said that within the Foundation is a "fundraising program created to help supply financial resources needed to build the pathway."

That fundraising effort, called The Bluffton Lions Foundation charity Corvette Raffle program, had its first successful raffle in 2010. This year the raffle expanded to include 501 (C) (4) organizations. Its website is www.blufftonlionsfoundation.org.

The Foundation has nine members, each a Bluffton Lion. Ramseyer is Foundation president. Richard McGarrity is vice president. Other Foundation members are Gary Bishop, Lowell Hostetler, Greg Denecker, Vanessa Greer, Elaine Harris, Matthew Jordan and Robert Amstutz.

McGarrity said that the Bluffton Lions Club launched the Foundation to help local and area charities. The Foundation's purpose is simple: help charities needing additional sources of revenue for programs, due to the down turn in the economy

"Against this background, the Bluffton Lions decided to lend a helping hand through a broader service approach," he added.

"The goal was to develop a fundraising program to help charities achieve their program goals," McGarrity said. "This goal is being achieved through the charity Corvette raffle. It is a concept that fits well with the Lions motto of 'We Serve,' and is the signature program of the Bluffton Lions Foundation."

Without Foundation revenue generated through the raffle, the Bluffton Pedestrian and Bike Pathway project would be hard pressed to succeed.

Bluffton Lions have a long history of supporting Bluffton community projects. One of the oldest organizations in the community, the club was chartered in 1934 by Lions Clubs International which is the world's largest service club organization with 45,000 clubs and 1.35 million members). It formed as a community service club to create and foster a spirit of cooperation for the needed programs in the community.

The club has 75 members and meetings twice monthly at 11:50 a.m. on the first and third Tuesday of each month at Maple Crest Senior Living Community, Bluffton. Vanessa Greer is the club president.