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Thunder back competition with Lakefield to support Lions guide dog program
Trent Hills is engaged in a friendly competition with Lakefield that will wind up helping the Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides.
The competition was launched last Friday by Mayor Bob Crate and Selwyn Township Mayor Sherry Senis just before the Trent Hills Thunder game against the North Kawartha Knights, who play in Lakefield. Unfortunately, the Knights won that game 4-3.
The goal is to collect aluminum pop-can pull tabs that will be redeemed for scrap with the proceeds going to the Lions Foundation. You can help out by dropping off your tabs at the Sunny Life Wellness & Recreation Centre where the Thunder will be collecting them.
Father Bill Moloney of St. Mary of the Visitation Parish in Campbellford had the idea for the year-long competition because he wanted to do something big in memory of Barry Lecour of Peterborough. Lecour, who died last April at 91, had been an active tab collector and Lions supporter for years. Moloney decided to suggest a competition with Butch Foster, who had collected tabs at St. Paul’s Parish in Lakefield.
Moloney said he considered a parish challenge for 2025, but decided it was better to “go big or go home” and he persuaded mayor Crate to get involved.
Crate challenged Senis to a municipal pull-tab contest. The municipality that collects the most pull-tabs per capita will win. There will be four official weigh-ins: March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31. The winning mayor will provide a hometown hockey jersey that the other mayor, also known as the loser, will wear at all municipal meetings for a week.
The Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides provide guide dogs to help people with a variety of conditions from vision or hearing impairment, to autism, or diabetes.
Moloney says the cost to provide one dog is $35,000. The aluminum from pull tabs is approximately 45 cents a pound, so 77,777 pounds of aluminum pull tabs — 124 million pull tabs — would provide one guide dog.
You can contact Moloney at 705.768.0844 for more details, or to pass on any pull tabs you have.
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