Lions share goodwill with local charities

A pride of Lloydminster Lions Club members gathered at the Legacy Centre to share the spoils of their latest sock drive and fundraising efforts with local charities.

The presentations took place following the club’s first dinner meeting of the year on Monday night with sock drive chair, Rick McMahon, leading the charge.

“Our motto is we serve and we serve this community,” said McMahon, who gave a shout-out to Titanium Energy Services for donating about 150 pairs of gloves as a bonus to the sock drive.

“It went really well. We figured we collected over 400 pairs of socks and gloves. This is our fourth year doing this. We are keeping people’s feet warm.”

McMahon says the sock drive ended in late December just before the busy holiday season, so they decided to hold off presenting them until now.

Bags of socks and gloves went to the Lloydminster Native Friendship Centre, Lloydminster Interval Home, Lloydminster Community Youth Centre and the Salvation Army.

Interval Home Society CEO, Angela RooksTrotzuk, was hand to say a few words about the socks and gloves.

“We’ll be able to hand them out to who - ever needs them, so it’s a nice gesture and donation to the Lloydminster Interval Home Society and the Lloydminster Community Youth Centre,” she said.

“It’s nice to be thought about. We appreciate the Lions and the work they do in the community.”

Reps were also on hand from sock dropoff points at Northern Factory Workwear, Exhaust Masters, and the Legacy Centre.

The audience learned Lions raise funds for charities during annual events, with the latest recipients on hand to receive some of that goodwill funding.

Kerry Taylor, president of the Kiwanis Lloydminster and District Music Festival, accepted a Lions’ cheque for $200 to support the festival.

A cheque for $500 went to support the adult mentoring program at Big Brothers Big Sister (BB/BS) Lloydminster to the delight of Jacqueline Weed, the organization’s director of service delivery.

“It was a very nice donation. January is mentoring month for us,” said Weed.

“We’re running a mentoring recruitment campaign right now, so all the donations we receive year-round go towards all of our mentoring programs.”

Weed says the new campaign to mentor youth in the community is going well.

“We’ve had tremendous support from the community,” she said, calling the Lions donation fantastic.

“We love the support we get from different groups in the community.”

Weed says she came to a Lions meeting in December and told them a little about what’s going on, so they were able to learn about the BB/BS organization as well.