Lambton Shrine Club members set up shop in a parking lot beneath the Blue Water Bridge in Point Edward Wednesday morning with a truckload of onions.
Lambton Shrine Club members set up shop in a parking lot beneath the Blue Water Bridge in Point Edward Wednesday morning with a truckload of onions.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Continuing a mire than three-decade tradition, club members are selling Vidalia onions to raise money for the Shriners Hospital for Children in Montreal.
Article content
“We do it around the middle of May every year, depending on when we get them in from Georgia,” said club president Stephen MacNeil.
Named for a Georgia town where they’re grown – and have their own museum – Vidalia onions are that state’s official vegetable. Their sweet flavor is said to be due to the low-sulphur soils in which they’re grown, the Georgia Economic Development Department website says.
Club members will sell 10-pound (4.5-kilogram) bags for $20 daily from 8 am to 5 pm until all 1,440 – 10 pallets of 144 bags – are gone, MacNeil said.
“That’s a lot,” he said, but the club hope they’ll sell out
Advertisement 3
Article content
Customer traffic was steady Wednesday morning.
“They come out of the woodwork,” MacNeil said of Vidalia buyers. “People come from all over.”
They are also available for sale at Praill’s Greenhouse and DeGroot’s Nurseries, he said.
Typically, the sale raises several thousand dollars the club uses to buy equipment for the Montreal hospital.
“We sell Christmas cakes too, at the mall,” MacNeil said of the club’s other major annual fundraiser.
Like many community organizations, Lambton Shrine has seen its membership decline in recent years.
“About 10 years ago, we had 450 members,” MacNeil said. That shrank during the pandemic, and with its membership aging, “now, we’re around 60 members.”
MacNeil said he hopes they can rebuild their numbers and boost community awareness of the club and its fundraising for the Montreal hospital.
Advertisement 4
Article content
The Shrine Club is open to Masonic Lodge members. “They have to be master Masons before they can come with us,” MacNeil said.
That’s one recruiting challenge the club faces, he said.
Don Roberts, a club executive member, said the Montreal hospital serves youngsters needing burn and orthopedic care.
It’s “a beautiful hospital,” he said. “They’ve done a fantastic job there.”
A Shriner since 1982, Roberts said he got involved “basically, because of my friends,” he said.
After he joined the Masonic Lodge, they encouraged him to become a Shriner.
“I had an uncle who was a Shriner and he always talked about the fun they had,” he said.
He’s a member of the club’s motor corps, driving member-owned and -maintained mini gasoline-powered cars in local parades.
The corps is set to appear in 16 local parades this year, Roberts said.
Parade audiences “love the little cars,” he said.
Article content