Dunning to receive Lions honor: Citizen of the Year has given decades of service

When the Shelter Island Lions Club chose Don Dunning to be its Citizen of the Year, to be celebrated at a dinner next Thursday, May 21, it was applauded as a natural fit with the mission of the Lions.

Among the many ways that Lions members volunteer to serve their communities, one of their top priorities is “improving the lives of the visually impaired and preventing avoidable blindness.”

Don Dunning has served as a volunteer for more than three decades with the Visions Center on Blindness, a 35-acre residential camp and recreation center for the blind in Rockland County, one of the largest and most comprehensive overnight training and vision rehabilitation facilities in the United States.

“It had an elaborate system of railings, marked in Braille for the blind. I went up there and built and repaired buildings,” Mr. Dunning said. “My construction experience was exactly what they needed, and I enjoyed it.” 

When the center embarked on a $15 million expansion project, he made sure it was carefully monitored. “I was the eyes on the construction for anything I thought was not right,” he recalled.

Eventually he was named to the Executive Committee of the camp and to the Board of Directors for Visions. After retiring from the Visions board in 2010, he was called back to the board in May 2014.

In 2009 the Shelter Island Lions gave him the “Knight of the Blind” award in recognition of his work for the blind. In 1996, the Seaford Lions Club honored Mr. Dunning with the Melvin Jones Award in recognition of his humanitarian work, and in 2002, Newsday featured him in its series “Everyday Hero” with a profile entitled, “A Ray of Light for the Blind.”

Mr. Dunning and his wife, Corinne, recalled in an interview for the Reporter how they first came to the Island with their friends, John and Fannie Quigley, and eventually decided to build their own home here. As their family grew, so did their connections to the Island. Their son Michael, who manages the Shelter Island School building and grounds, married Patty Quigley, an attorney; another son Kevin, a contractor, is married to Jacki Dunning, District Clerk for the School. Four grandchildren live on the Island.

They have a third son, Brian, who doesn’t live on the Island, and he and his wife, Carol have three children. And they just became grandparents to a baby girl, Olivia, a year ago. “I can get used to the fact that I have a great-grandchild,” Ms. Dunning said. “It’s a little harder to believe that my son is a grandfather!” Keeping Don and Corinne company is a 17-month-old Labradoodle named Jessie, who fills their Shelter Island home with boundless energy.

John Quigley sponsored Mr. Dunning to be a member of the Shelter Island Lions, and he continued the volunteer service he had begun in Seaford. At one point, he felt he couldn’t keep up with all that needed to be done, and Jim Read, Chief of Police and active in Lions leadership, said “Don’t retire — I’ll get somebody to help you.” That helpmate, Archer Brown, formed a perfect team with Mr. Dunning, and they spent the next five years working closely together to build the Lions membership. 

“They spoke on the phone every day,” said Mrs. Dunning. Archer Brown, a longtime and beloved Reporter staffer who passed away in 2025, was one of the Island’s most indefatigable and beloved volunteers.

Mrs. Dunning herself found a new calling through the Lions. After retiring from a career as a nurse, she attended a talk hosted by the Lions from a member of East End Hospice. She felt her skills could be useful there, and spent the next 12 years with their program, calling it “the best job I ever had.”

Mr. Dunning’s career in construction was at a company he shared with his twin brother, Dan, who will come up from South Carolina for the award dinner. On the Island,

Mr. Dunning has helped the Senior Citizens program with home repairs — everything from installing ramps to changing hard-to-reach light bulbs. “There are a lot of widows on the Island,” Mrs. Dunning pointed out, who need the occasional helping hand around the house. “People were always happy when I left after helping them,” said Mr. Dunning. “I loved it.”

He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Shelter Island Public Library, and again, his construction background has come in handy. “I’m sort of the unofficial supervisor of the Library’s expansion project,” he said.

Like many couples who’ve been together for decades, Corinne and Don finish each other’s sentences, and enjoy sharing memories of the volunteer work over the years. A favorite is a time when the Seaford Lions wanted to secure a seeing-eye dog for someone, which entailed a big, expensive project. Mr. Dunning came up with the idea to have a local class of 3rd-graders write letters to suggest names for the dog. The winner would get to attend the ceremony where the puppy would be introduced to the person for whom it would become a guide dog.

“We sat at night and read those letters. They were all so cute,” Mrs. Dunning recalled. The name that was eventually chosen was “Viking,” after the school mascot. But the one that tickled Mr. Dunning the most, and still makes him laugh, was from one enterprising young lad who thought he might win by suggesting the name “Don Dunning.”

“It’s been a journey,” Mrs. Dunning said. “But a nice journey,” added her husband, the Lions Citizen of Year. 

The Citizen of the Year award will be presented at the Lions dinner on Thursday, May 21 at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club. Tickets are on sale at the Shelter Island Public Library and online from the Lions website (shelterislandlions.org).