{"id":8783,"date":"2014-10-29T17:26:47","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T21:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8783"},"modified":"2014-11-12T17:46:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T22:46:05","slug":"view-from-queens-park-lions-roar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/view-from-queens-park-lions-roar\/","title":{"rendered":"VIEW FROM QUEEN’S PARK: Lions Roar"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chris Ballard, MPP
\nNewmarket-Aurora<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in the \u201860s and \u201870s my hometown of King City was a pretty quiet place. If you weren\u2019t interested in outdoor activities you were out of luck. Especially given these were the days before 200 channel TV and Internet. Thankfully, we had the King City Lions.
\nThe group of enthusiastic men \u2013 and there were only men in the club in those days \u2013 organized a multitude of recreational and social events that gave us kids something to do, and our town a stronger sense of community.
\nI remember baseball played in the Lions Park, now the King City Memorial Park. (In my day we simply called it \u201cThe Park.\u201d) My father coached for a few years, as did many dads. If I close my eyes I can still smell the cool, damp night air, and hear the thunk of another bat on a ball.
\nIf I recall, the Lions organized baseball, ran the yearly fireworks show, maintained the park, flooded the winter rink, ran a park concession stand, and organized a yearly auction.
\nThe auction \u2013 that\u2019s where we recycled our bikes.
\nAnyone whose bike was too small had it donated to the Lions. When the magical auction day arrived, it was a scramble to buy a larger bike. I\u2019m sure the auction sold more than bikes, but that\u2019s all I cared about.
\nThere was also the annual Lions Club Oyster Supper fundraiser. Oysters? King City? 1970s? How exotic!
\nI was thinking about all the positive things the King City Lions Club did for my home town as I was preparing to speak at the Anniversary Dinner for the Aurora Lions, held Saturday at the Legion.
\nFounded in 1944, the Aurora group is celebrating its 70th year and marked the occasion with a festive dinner, which included guest speaker, Vice District Governor Susan Tate.
\nSeventy years of contribution to the community is certainly something to be proud of and clearly demonstrates Lion members live up to their motto: \u201cWe Serve.\u201d I am impressed by both what the Aurora Lions have done, and also their international organization.
\nWith an astonishing 1.35 million members worldwide, the Lions are global leaders in humanitarianism. I learned there are more than 45,000 Lions clubs in over 206 countries, making Lions the world\u2019s largest service club.
\nA quick bit of calculation tells me that if you visited a different Lions Club each day, it would take you more than 123 years to visit them all.
\nHere in Aurora, the Lions have been among our volunteer leaders.
\nThere are a number of local Lions projects that stand out for me \u2013 the Lion\u2019s Park, the original Town Park Band Shell, funding for our public library, the Christmas basket program (still going strong), and who can forget pancakes served with real maple syrup at Shepherd\u2019s Bush each spring when the sap was running. (There are plans afoot, I\u2019m told, to bring back that wonderful tradition.)
\nI was staggered to learn the group sponsors over 500 vision tests for young Aurora school children each year. Vision is a key focus for Lions.
\nLions serve. Indeed!
\nThere were two seeing-eye dogs in attendance at the dinner, attending with their charges who are Lions members. Both were wonderfully behaved, beautiful animals. The Lions have been a big part of providing visually challenged people with assistance dogs. It isn\u2019t cheap. I heard prices for a well-trained seeing-eye dog range from $10,000 to $15,000.
\nToday\u2019s Lions readily admit women to the club and that is reflected in the list of club officers — about half are women.
\nThe Aurora group is rebuilding itself to meet the challenges of the next 70 years. It meets the second and third Tuesday of each month at the Aurora Canadian Legion, 105 Industrial Parkway North. You can contact president Ra\u2019ed Dallal at raed_dallal@yahoo.ca for information.
\nAlthough part of a massive international organization, our local group doesn\u2019t get any more grassroots. Thank you to all who serve, and have served, in the group. And thanks to King City Lions, who helped make my childhood a lot more fun.
\nWe\u2019ve moved.
\nOur community office has moved to 328 Wellington St., E., Aurora. We\u2019re on the second floor of the white building, behind Nino D\u2019Aversa Bakery. It\u2019s a fantastic new building and the rent is more affordable.
\nOur new office is wonderfully accessible. It\u2019s on the York Region Transit line and within walking distance of the Aurora GO Station. There is also lots of parking.
\nOur phone numbers and email remain the same, although we have tweaked our hours to better serve residents: Monday-Wednesday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
\nCall us at 905-750-0019.
\nEmail us at cballard@mpp.co@liberal.ola.org.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris Ballard, MPP Newmarket-Aurora Back in the \u201860s and \u201870s my hometown of King City was a pretty quiet place. If you weren\u2019t interested in outdoor activities you were out of luck. Especially given these were the days before 200 channel TV and Internet. Thankfully, we had the King City Lions. The group of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2hF","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 04:59:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}