Service club members donate $125K to the Hospice of Elgin fundraising campaign

Theirs may be a small town on the north shore of Lake Erie.

But members of Port Stanley’s Lions community have made an outsized contribution toward the Hospice of Elgin.

Indeed, their recent $125,000 donation is the largest yet by any service club toward the $17-million campaign supporting the proposed hospice build.

It was celebrated last month in a presentation at Port Stanley United Church – the photo op featuring, quite appropriately, a big cheque for the big sum that the Port’s Lions, Lioness and Leos groups have banked through various funders.

And tho’ the year still was 2023, “What a way to kick off 2024,” Dr. Bob Jones, hospice fundraising campaign chair, said with a smile.

St. Thomas and Elgin is the only region in Southwestern Ontario without a hospice. But with close to 75 per cent of the fundraising campaign’s goal now in the bank, the dream of such a long-sought facility is becoming a reality. The hospice has opened tenders for a general contractor and waits a Ministry of Health go-ahead.

Longtime Lion John Johnstone says the hospice will allow residents to pass as if they were at home with family, who will be able to sleep over.

“Every time I hear of a family leaving their loved ones far from home at a time when we should be easing their pain, it is unsettling, to say the least.”

One of 10 suites in the hospice, which is expected to provide end-of-life care for 125 persons annually in a bucolic, forested setting on South Edgeware Road, will now be named for the Lions.

Meanwhile, the community continues to step up in support of displaced residents of the Hiawatha Street apartment building collapse and demolition.

“It’s been awesome,” says Adam Marshall, the outreach co-ordinator for the St. Thomas and Elgin Salvation Army, which has been accepting donations to replace lost households. Deemed too dangerous to enter, the apartment building was condemned and heartbreakingly razed with residents’ possessions still inside. They lost everything.

While those donations can’t replace sentimental objects, they can help clothe and restart lives with dignity and respect, Adam says.

Kitchenwares are a particular need, and small appliances such........

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