Serving the community

Wellington Lions Club continues to serve despite pandemic

Social distancing measures intended to curb the spread of COVID-19 have meant that service clubs such as the Wellington Lions Club can no longer do their usual activities and fundraisers to benefit the community. The club has been serving the Wellington area, and indeed the wider County, since 1974 and has never had its operation restricted to this degree before. However, the club has been finding new ways to live up to its motto of “We Serve”. The annual sale of Easter chocolates took on a new twist this year. Reaching out through social media and having a “contactless” porch pick-up made this year’s sale a success. In fact, one member had to delve in to her own personal stash of chocolate bunnies to fill one frantic request late on that Easter Saturday afternoon. While her own sweet tooth cravings were denied, there was at least one very happy youngster on Sunday morning.

The Wellington club has taken the initiative on another recent project. The club will be providing 90 cloth face masks to the residents of Hallowell House. The face masks are being made by a Lions Club member from the Ottawa area, using material that had been intended for shirts and tunics to be worn by Canadian attendees to the organization’s international conventions. A change in the dress code to a golf-style shirt meant the material was now surplus. “As Lions, we looked at what we could do this year in terms of service activities because of the COVID-19 situation. We’ve had to cancel our concerts in the park, we’ve had to cancel our card club for seniors. The thought occurred to us that if we could convert that material into face masks, that would be a real service opportunity throughout our community, and across the province,” said incoming Wellington club president John Whyte. “The Wellington club has actually taken the initiative on this and we are the first club in Ontario to use this material to make masks. They are fully lined, fully elasticized to provide a snug fit, and are completely washable.” The club is also making the masks available to the wider community, at a cost of $6.50 each. “That is basically the cost of the mask, for material, shipping and HST, and is not intended as a fundraiser. It is to provide a service to the community,” said Whyte. So far, there have been more than 50 additional masks ordered. For more information, please call John at 613.847.3749, or email jhwhyte48@yahoo.ca.

The Wellington club is also supporting the staff at Hallowell House and West Lake Terrace longterm care facilities through a grant provided by the Lions Club International Foundation (LCIF). The LCIF provides funds for disaster relief or humanitarian aid, and has given Ontario clubs in this area a total of $10,000 (US) in support of long-term care facilities. The aim is to support front line workers, and there’s also a directive to make partnerships with local food producers. “What we are doing for the two long-term care facilities in our area, Hallowell House—which our club has adopted over the last few years with Christmas gifts for some of the residents—and West Lake Terrace, we will be providing pizza lunches for the day shift staff over the next couple of weeks. We will be purchasing the pizzas from Rock’n Rogers here in Wellington, and donating them and that will be covered by our portion of the District LCIF grant,” said Whyte, who added that the staff were “over the moon” with the pizza lunches. “With the masks for residents, and the pizza, we’ve checked with the long-term care facility staff to make sure what we are doing is put to the best use,” he added.