Tillsonburg Kinsmen Club Celebrates a Milestone

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Wednesday, 29 January 2020 08:58

The Tillsonburg Kinsmen club is hosting several free community events this year as they celebrate their 75th anniversary.

TILLSONBURG - The Tillsonburg Kinsmen club is celebrating their 75th anniversary this year.

Throughout the year they will hosting several free events for the community to celebrate, with the next event coming up on Family Day weekend.

President Shane Curtis says Kinsmen members take a lot of pride in helping out the community.

"Our club is extremely proud of the way we are able to give back to the community, we talk about it often. This year, for our 75th anniversary, we are trying to have events at the major sponsors we have done around town. We have an event at the Soccer Park, we are trying to coordinate an event at the Bandshell and we already did one at the outdoor rink. So it is nice to raise awareness again of what we have contributed to the Town and it is a proud moment for current and past Kinsmen to come out, along with the community to come and celebrate what we have been able to give back over the number of years."

Tillsonburg actually has one of the largest Kinsmen Clubs in Canada. They also have one of the youngest. Curtis says while they love to give back to the community, they also have a lot of fun as well.

"We do sporting events, we will go and watch a Football game, we have done hockey events, we do mystery events where we have had a private tour of the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room, this past year we had a private tour of the London Knights dressing room. We try to make it fun when we are doing fundraising as well, we have our smart serve for Buck and Does, we do different events, we do BBQ's, we do an Easter Egg Hunt every year."

The Kinsmen National Club of Canada is also celebrating their 100th anniversary this year with a big event on February 20th, that is being called Founders Day. The National charity for Kinsmen is Cystic Fibrosis and every club contributes funds to help support the disease. In Tillsonburg the rest of the funds go towards something they have called the Communities Greatest Needs.

The Kinsmen Club of Tillsonburg has made a large or the largest contributions to the follow assets in the Town of Tillsonburg.

- Indoor Pool

- Kinsmen Outdoor Pool, (They actually dug out the original pool by hand)

- Its for Everyone campaign, Community Centre Complex with Two ice Pads

- Kinsmen Participark

- Kinsmen Squash Courts

- Scott McLean Outdoor Rink; (50k contribution and helped build)

- Lake Lisgar Renaissance

- Tillsonburg Soccer Park

- Kinsmen Bandshell

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Kinsmen club, they will be hosting the following free events in the community.

January 18 - Outdoor Ice Pad – Hot Chocolate/Hot Dogs – 11am to 1 pm