Lions Club donates $5,000 to local exchange program
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Strathmore Lions Club made a contribution of $5,000 to the Wheatland Leos, Jan. 18, to fund activities for the Lions Youth Exchange this summer.
“The Wheatland Leos, it is a relatively new group that we certainly want to support, but they have undertaken a project that has to do with student debt – the Lions Student Exchange program,” said Wayner Herdman, speaking on behalf of the Strathmore Lions Club. “Under this program, international students and local students, they come to the area and what they do when they are here is they will spend roughly one week in a leadership camp where they all meet and they are given some leadership training.”
Following this, Herdman said the students are hosted by families around the area for the remaining duration of the program. Host families will take students on excursions around the province during the two-week tenure.
The camp will take place in July, hosting 20 international students and 10 from Alberta.
“What they are trying to do is give them more exposure to Alberta, so they are planning for trips for the students to different areas … they are basically trying to find certain venues in Alberta that show international students what Alberta has,” said Herdman. “In order to support that, we have decided to donate monies to the Leos so that they can carry out this program. They will have to charter busses for example, pay for entrance fees and things like that. That is their goal and we throught that was a worthwhile thing.”
In order to function as intended, the Wheatland Leos have to be sponsored by a club. In this case, the Wheatland Leos were sponsored by the Wood Creek Lions Club, which is a virtual Lions Club. With this sponsorship in place, the Wheatland Leos are inducted into the Lions Club system.
Herdman added the way the Strathmore Lions got involved was due to the Wheatland Leos largely operating out of the Strathmore High School, with most of their membership base residing within Wheatland County. It was something the Lions felt was worth supporting.
“We expect that this fund is going to last for a number of years – not a large number, possibly three years I would suggest. Certainly, it is an expensive thing to charter a bus and travel any distance, but it gives a boost to the whole program,” said Herdman. “We expect that we might donate funds in the future. We will see how it turns out with the funds that they have … (and) if we think it is worthwhile for further contributions.”
The Strathmore Lions are still accepting applications from any youth who are interested in spending three weeks to a month abroad for the exchange program. Anyone who is curious or is wanting more information can reach out to Brad Walls (bradwalls@shaw.ca) via email.