Charles McBride
President
Little Neck Lions Club
Little Neck
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Charles “Charlie” McBride lives in “the house I grew up in” in Little Neck. Since returning to the neighborhood with his wife and family in 1984, he’s been active with P.S. 94 “I drove a farm tractor pulling their float in the Memorial Day Parade” Boy Scout Troop 183, where he helped organize a Jamboree at Alley Pond Park in 1991, the local chapter of the Lions Club where he was president from 1996 to 1998 and again from 2006 through today. As a Lion, he assisted with a youth education program which involved rebuilding the barn at the Queens Farm Museum. “I’m very proud of that,” he admits, explaining, “A lot of the kids in that program needed direction - many went on to get good union jobs in the trades.” McBride was also an active member of the predecessor Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade committee before it reorganized as a non-profit corporation. “I had kids in college and was working two jobs, so I had to cut back” he said, adding, “I decided to stay with the Lions.”
PERSONAL: McBride has been married to the former Nancy Gardner since 1979. They have two sons, “Chip,” 28, and James, 24. “My sons grew up in the house I grew up in, in my old neighborhood,” he said. “One of the things they complained about is that every time they asked my friends for stories about me they always got the same answer: ‘Your dad would kill me if I told you any of them,’ ” he said with a chuckle.
JOB: He joined the New York City Police Department on July 13, 1981. “When I had a chance to retire 20 years later, I realized it would be on Friday the 13th, so I stayed in an extra 10 days, just to be on the safe side,” McBride confided with an impish grin. In between he worked at a precinct in Bushwick, Brooklyn and at Police Headquarters, in the Management Information Systems Division.
PROUDEST MOMENT: McBride frowned. “That’s pretty tough as I’m so proud of both my boys,” who each won “Youth of the Year” from the parade committee. Finally, he decides. “I have to say it was recently, when Jimmy, who had just graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, got sworn in to the United States Marine Corps on the deck of the USS Constitution by his great-uncle, a retired Army Colonel. He’s now in flight school, and just soloed a couple of weeks ago and is living his dream.”
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “Getting more people to embrace the ideal of the Lions Club, which is to give back to the community without unnecessary attention to yourself personally. For a Lion, good works are their own reward.”
INSPIRATION: McBride is inspired by the Lions Club ideals. For many years the group has worked to combat blindness all over the world. They are honoring some of their own on Sunday, November 23 at the Inn in New Hyde Park, which hosts Lions Club meetings on the first Monday of the month.
