The Roar: “Pulling Us All Together”

Lynn Oborne | Jun 28, 2023

When one thinks of ‘year end’, what date comes to mind? Some might automatically think December 31st and start to reflect about their past year and perhaps make New Year’s resolutions.

For Lions worldwide, the date is June 30th. In this Roar we would like to reflect on the past year and sum up for you what the Lions Club of Land O’Lakes has accomplished in the past 12 months.

Annually, at the end of June we have a 4-day Toll Road where the community shows their support of the Lions. We have another one just as hunting season starts. This year your generosity raised over $17,500!

We had a very busy year hosting events and fundraisers...here are some of them:

During the Summer we had a fish fry, a golf tournament, weekly farmer’s market and a community dance.

In the Fall we invited children to the hall to paint pumpkins and we had a spooky fun Halloween Dance.  We also had a ham dinner to raise money for diabetes. All the while, many of our members collected cans and bottles at various dumps each week and sorted them in our new bottle shed made possible through grants. 

Winter saw The Santa Claus Parade, which was the largest in recent years with 32 floats, up from 18 floats the year before. We had a marching band, a bagpiper, a town crier and the children got to have a visit with Santa and some of his reindeer after the parade. A new addition was the Holly Shoppe where children could purchase gifts for their family and then the elves would wrap and label the presents.

Santa returned two weeks later and opened his workshop where children could work alongside elves, decorate cookies, make toys, play several games and see the “mad” scientist do wild experiments. It truly was a magical time. 

In February we hosted a ‘High Tea’ dinner which was a delicious gourmet meal prepared by our members and served elegantly with lovely live music. It certainly was appreciated by those who attended. This was followed by a Valentine’s Dance.

Another new project we started is called “The Speakers' Forum”. We have partnered with the Cloyne and District Historical Society. We started this in April and have had an art restorer, an ecologist talking about invasive species and endangered turtles, and two RCAF officers talking about international cargo and search and rescue. Coming soon, we are having an expert speak on climate change in Land O’Lakes. This project will offer a speaker the second Wednesday of every month through to September and hopefully will continue next spring with more interesting topics.

The end of May was our first-ever Dog Guide Walk. The students from NAEC hand painted over 250 wooden dogs which decorated the Lions fence. We had over 50 participants and about 25 dogs make the walk to Pine Meadows Nursing Home which delighted the residents. The Community was so generous, and we raised over $10,000 for this very important organization. 

Lions like to help wherever we can and sometimes it is supporting other groups or other Lions Clubs “pulling us all together”. In recent weeks, some of our members have visited the Lions in Havelock celebrating their 75th Anniversary, others went to Sharbot Lake for breakfast, some to Tweed and a group went to Denbigh-Griffiths to celebrate their 25th Anniversary. ‘

We actually sponsored this Club originally in 1998, which made it even more special to celebrate their anniversary with them.

This past winter we produced and printed a Lions cookbook as a fundraiser, partnering with the Lions Clubs in Sharbot Lake and Denbigh-Griffith. There are lots of delicious and old and new family recipes - you can purchase one at our weekly Farmers Market. 

Our Farmers Market is into its 3rd season with more vendors, colourful tables, chairs, umbrellas and often special activities for the children. Check out the “Candy Shop” display at the Lions table.

We have promoted two food this year and are accepting donations of non-perishable food items every Saturday at the market.

As mentioned in several past “Roars”, we are a Service Club. The monies we raise go back to our community and to several charities.

Locally, we give bursaries to NAEC graduating students, we donate to Pine Meadows Nursing Home, the Food Bank, the Alzheimer’s Society, LOL Community Services and Lennox & Addington Resources for Children. We donated to recent disasters around the world, Port aux Basques, NL after Hurricane Fiona, to Turkey and Syria after the devastating earthquake, and locally to Tweed after the tornado last summer.

There were also 17 other worthwhile community service organizations we helped with a total of over $52k given out this past year!

And, with our community being foremost ... following the derecho of May 2022, we decided to create a space for our community in case of a disaster. The planning has been ongoing since July. We have arrived at a fully operational Comfort Center that can take in 120 people as the need arises. We are in the process of updating our hall to become an emergency shelter that can accommodate people for up to 48 hours in the event of an emergency. Fundraising efforts will be amped up this coming year, so keep watching for updates.

Mention must be made of our current President, Nawar El Khouri-Hage and the positive impact she has had, not only on our Club, but our whole community. She has raised the bar for anyone who follows in her footsteps and we thank her for a great year.

Go back to the beginning of this article ... July 1st is the start of our new board, a very enthusiastic team who are looking forward to continuing past projects yet also wanting to venture into some new ones. I personally, as the new President, look forward to being part of this dynamic group of Lions who represent an incredible Club of 75 members, all the while “pulling us all together “.

None of what we accomplish could have happened without the tremendous support of our community. Thank you!