Lions wrap up burger sales with $20,000 to spend

The St. Davids Lions have wrapped up their Friday evening burger barbecue fundraiser, making $20,000 to support community projects.

Lion Ed Pittman, with his wife Sue, took on the organization of the event to help make the service club a little money. The Lions had to cancel their annual carnival and popular fish fries because of the pandemic, and Lion Joe Typer came up with the idea of a drive-through burger pick-up, which proved to be more successful than they could have imagined, says Pittman.

Their final barbecue of the season was “phenomenal,” he says. “A huge number of people showed up, since it was the last night. We ran out of burgers, so we had to close up early.”

They had about 35 vehicles left in line when they closed, and once they ran out of beef for burgers, they offered peameal or hot dogs, and gave away extra fries to make up for the wait time.

“Everybody was absolution fine about it, just taking what we had left. We’ve had such wonderful support from the community. They’ve been fabulous for all 11 weeks. It was a good turnout every week, we had good weather, the volunteers were great, and we got a system down that worked really well for us.”

Some of the money raised has already gone to help pay for a service dog, and also for a food program for kids, says Pittman.

The Leos wanted to pitch in, and “were absolutely fantastic. We had five or six Leos every week, taking orders, delivering food to vehicles, and doing a lot of running. They would do whatever jobs came up,” he says. “It was good to have some young kids helping out.”

The next fundraiser for the club is a return to the fish fries in November, says Pittman. Club members are already working on how to manage them safely, likely keeping the orders simple because they will have fewer volunteers in the kitchen.

The fish and chips will be delivered to vehicles in a drive-through, similar to the way the burgers were, he says.

“We’re in discussion now. We usually do them from November to April or May. As soon as we get it figured out, we’ll rock and roll.”