BORDEN — Borden Fire and Rescue, in partnership with Little Sprouts Early Childhood Learning Centre, held a successful steak night and live/silent auction Nov. 5, in the Borden Community Centre.
More than180 were on hand to enjoy a delicious meal and to raise money for both. Captains Luke Walker and Jamie Redhead welcomed everyone, called for a moment of silence for all departed firefighters/first responders across the country and then Peter Thiessen gave the blessing.
Luke and Jamie had each table answer a quiz question regarding fire and rescue trivia. If right they went up to eat and if wrong they went to the next table and the losers had to wait until near the end to go up to get their meal.
Little Sprouts had many items donated for their silent auction held in the Seniors’ Room. After the meal Jillian Orchard of Little Sprouts Learning Centre, described how the proceeds from the evening would go to replace windows and renovate bathrooms in the building they bought.
A message was read from MP Kelly Block thanking all firefighters, first responders and their families for their work and to Borden for hosting this event.
Tom Redhead spoke on behalf of the village, recognizing the council, management, administrative team and the 22 members of fire and rescue, especially Fire Chief Ian Wainwright. Ian related that the fire and rescue had member growth the last few years and thanked all those who had volunteered and also thanked the support of the community especially in these last two difficult years through COVID. Training was on hold but is now back on.
Through membership in the Highway 16 commission, the neighboring towns’ fire and rescue are able to train together as minimum fire standards have been changed and firefighters need to be certified by October of 2023.
A detailed account was given of number of calls (fire, accidents, distress) they have made since 2019. In 2020 they attended 377, 2021, 390 and to date in 2022, 281 firefighter calls and 341 in total.
The firefighters and first responders were introduced and came up on stage to be recognized. Service awards were presented to Josh, Natalie, Kristina, Sean, Martin, Craig, Josie, Justin, Ross, BJ, Jenna, Dustin, David, Peter, Mandy(dispatcher), Luke, Jamie, Robbie, Dan, Ian T, Connor and Ian W.
Kelly Clark from Ritchie Auctions then began auctioning eight donated items displayed on the stage plus a quarter of beef and two bags of canola, which brought in a total of $4,955 for all 10 donations. The 50/50 of $375 was taken home by Gloria Derbowka and three bottles of Christmas cheer were won by Lucas Saunders, Bob Krueger and David Sutherland. The many items in the silent auction were then tabulated and paid for, bringing in another $9,345 on top of the live auction for Little Sprouts.
Thank you to everyone who supported the event and bought items, as it all goes to great causes.
The Borden Lions met Nov. 7 with 19 members present. The fall supper went well and the presentation at the Welcome to Borden Night was well received. The school breakfast program is ongoing and the club will donate $100 for each of October and November. More details on cost and what to donate in future months will be sought. A sign will be erected in the sign corridor east of Borden for the Borden Care Home and the Lions are providing funds of over $500 for it.
The Remembrance Day service on Nov. 11 at 10:45 a.m. was finalized and lunch will be served following the service. The Busy Bees Preschool are drawing pictures to decorate the Community Centre. A festival of music will be held in the Community Centre the evening of Sunday, Dec. 4 and lunch is provided at that by the members.
The club will be getting tickets to sell for the Lions Wilderness Camp for handicapped children at Deschambault Lake. It costs $500 to $600 per camper so donations are welcome. The Lions Dog Training Centre at Oakville, Ont. is getting fairly old and needs a great deal of renovations, so the Lions have decided to build a new facility at a cost of over $25 million. The centre houses seven different programs for dogs and their handlers. The cost to train one dog and their future handler is more than $35,000.
The club will be ordering new black sports shirts with the Lions logo for new members to wear at catering events.
