Laval Lions raise $42,000 for local groups at 42nd annual benefit dinner
Published November 4 , 2009
By Martin C. Barry • TLN

Eleven Laval-based community groups will be sharing $42,000 raised during the 42nd annual benefit dinner held by the Laval Lions Club at the Château Royal in Chomedey on Oct. 21. Attended by about 1,000 Lions Club members and their guests, Laval’s mayor, Gilles Vaillancourt, was the guest of honour. Jocelyn Dufresne, a prominent paving and excavation contractor from Laval, was the event’s honourary chairman.
Betting goes hi-tech
As in past years, the much-anticipated highlight of the evening was a bingo-style betting game, involving numbered tickets placed in small plastic capsules which were drawn from a drum. An innovation this year was a computerized system for displaying the numbers on a super-sized screen as they were called at the front of the hall. At the end of the long evening, Jean-François Tremblay claimed the $3,000 top prize. There was also a $500 prize, one for $300 and thirteen $100 prizes.
“This is in of the Laval Lions Club’s most important fundraisers,” Ginette Legault-Bernier, the Laval city councillor for Abord à Plouffe and longtime member of the Laval Lions, told the Laval News. While the Lions also hold a golf tournament and sell their well-known fruit cakes to raise funds, she said the annual benefit dinner has become indispensable for helping deserving causes. A full-course surf and turf dinner, with filet mignon and butterfly shrimp, was served. “I accepted the honourary chairmanship to do a service for the Lions,” said Dufresne, who is the second generation of his family to get involved with the club. His father, Jocelyn Sr., also supported the Lions.
Honourary chair Jocelyn Dufresne
“I believe in the Lions movement and I have confidence in them,” said Dufresne, who has been a Lion since 1979. “I’ve been working with them for the past 30 years, the money raised is well-distributed, and I find that important.” In a brief address, Vaillancourt said Laval’s success as a city is mirrored in the profitable work the Lions have done to improve life for so many residents. While on the podium, he pitched some of the projects he is currently working on for Laval, including the new sports and culture complex to be built on Saint-Martin Boulevard and the creation of new Metro stations in Laval, for which the city has an agreement in principle from Quebec.
Lions Club International is the world’s largest service organization with more than 1.3 million members in 203 countries around the world. Headquartered in the United States, the organization was founded in 1917 by a Chicago businessman named Melvin Jones. Lions clubs tend to focus on supporting causes related to the conservation of sight, hearing and speech, diabetes awareness, youth outreach, international relations, environmental issues and other programs based in the community. The development of leadership skills is also considered very important and the Lions have an extensive leadership development program.
List of organizations
The following organizations in Laval will be benefiting from the $42,000 gift from the Lions: Maison d’hébergement l’envolée de Laval; la Maison des enfants le Dauphin de Laval; Maison des Soins Palliatifs de Laval; La Maisonnée Paulette Guinois; Partage Humanitaire; la Clinique Opthalmologique des Clubs Lions; Maison Alzheimer; Partage St-Maxime; les Petits Chanteurs de Laval; Dysphasie +; l’Association des personnes asphasiques de Laval; l’Association de Laval pour la déficience intellectuelle.