By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Burlington’s Bob Hilton, a long-standing member of the Lions Club of Burlington, found himself telling a deeply personal story at a recent Lions Club meeting when the club was deciding on their 2023 donations to local organizations.
Early in December 2023, a Lions Club member who works at City Hall requested that the club give funding to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.
Hilton, the chair of the donations committee, was moved to tell the story of his own involvement in Big Brothers Big Sisters.
During the 1960s, Hilton was assigned an eight-year-old “little brother.”
“He grew up in a family that was totally dysfunctional,” Hilton said. “Father was gone. He had two brothers and two sisters. One brother was in and out of the merchant maritime services, the other brother was in jail. One of the sisters worked as a stripper downtown Toronto and the other sister prostituted herself.”
Hilton would have the boy over for meals, work together with him to build a fence, and lay patio stones.
“It was all projects, family-oriented,” Hilton said. “And at that point, we were having our own family starting. And he became like a little bit of a big brother to my son. My son was just a baby. If my wife wanted to go grocery shopping, I’d go grocery shopping with her. He’d stay there at the house and take care of him.”
After four years, the young boy’s mother remarried, and Hilton’s services were not needed anymore.
But 20 years later, the story took an unexpected turn.
“I got a phone call from Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Edmonton, saying they had this young man that wanted to volunteer and become a Big Brother, and that he had been helped by Big Brothers and Big Sisters out of Hamilton, and my name was mentioned,” Hilton said.
“He had been able to go to college, he’d graduated. He was working out west in Alberta,” he continued.
The retelling of that story at the December Lions Club meeting certainly underscored the benefits of Big Brothers Big Sisters.
“If something is here in Burlington, we make up our minds,” Hilton said. “The donations committee can donate up to a certain number of dollars without going to the board.”
“The board steps in if we want them to donate at a level higher than that, the board steps in and makes a decision. And if they support it, and it has a value between what we can do and what they are allowed to do, then they can say yes. But if the donation is above that level, then it has to go to the club as a whole to vote,” he continued.
“So, the bigger the donation, the more involved.”
The donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters was approved by the club and is in the range of $2000.
According to Hilton, the club lost a lot of its fundraising ability due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In 2018, they raised a heck of a lot of money,” he said. “So, they budgeted to spend that money the next year, they budgeted as if it was going to be the same. Well, Murphy’s Law came along and said ‘No, it isn’t going to be that.’”
“So, they suffered a significant drop in what they were [able to spend]. And then, of course, all these service clubs have lost members, because it’s no longer the fashion to be members of service clubs,” he continued.
Despite the dwindling number of members, Hilton believes the purpose of the club hasn’t changed.
“Our purpose is to serve the community in which we live,” Hilton said.
Hilton explained that the club breaks down projects and fundraising opportunities into four different categories.
“Youth would be things like high school scholarships and the young people’s sports, minor sports,” Hilton said.
“’Community’ would be other things within the community. ‘Health’ is obviously health-related. We’ve donated substantial sums of money to the hospital. We’ve also donated to various hospitals around here for various reasons. And then we have ‘Lions Projects.’ Now, a Lions Project could be a local project here in the City of Burlington, or we’ve expanded it to say, from our purpose there, Halton Region, because so many of the services that are provided are provided by Lions,” Hilton continued.
The main organization, Lions International, is the largest service club organization in the world.
The Burlington Lions Club was founded in 1925 and initially comprised a large number of civic leaders.
In 1929, the club acquired the land on which current headquarters was built.
They currently share the building with the Reach Out Centre for Kids (ROCK).
Hilton explained the origin of the two groups’ connection.
“They wanted to build an expansion onto the building and have it as a daycare centre,” Hilton said. “So, the Lions Club was supportive of that because it was good for the community.”
Hilton told a story about the agreement that was reached between the two organizations.
“CATS [the former name of ROCK] who was located at that time in one room down at Lakeshore School, elementary school, wanted to build a building,” Hilton said.
“And I’d had a bit of a reputation as helping in fundraising. So, they asked me if I would help them, and I knew what they had done. In fact, my son had been a client there. So, I said, ‘Yes, of course, I’ll help.’ And I did. Then I said, ‘So where are you planning on building the building?’ Well, remember now, we’re back in the 1980s, late 80s.”
“And they said, ‘Well, we’ve been offered some land at a pretty good price for our building. Over by Burloak, north of the highway.’ Well, of course, at that point in time, there was nothing there. And I said, ‘You told me that 60% of your clientele come by bus. How are they going to get there?’” Hilton continued.
“‘Well, what they’ll do is we’ll get them on the bus to come to the end of New Street and Burloak, and we’ll pick them up in a van.’”
“That doesn’t seem like a good working situation. I said, ‘We’ve got two real estate agents and two lawyers in our club. Let me take you to introduce you to the board and…see if there is some way we can find a better location in the community,’” he said.
As the chair of the negotiating committee, Hilton pushed for the Lions to give a scholarship to every secondary school in Burlington, in both the public and Catholic boards , instead of just one for Central High School, as the club had offered up that point.
He was also responsible for getting a second scholarship at each secondary school in Burlington, one for students planning to go to college and one for those going to university.
Hilton explained the process of picking the student for each scholarship.
“The club does not decide on who gets the scholarship,” Hilton said. “We ask each school [and] their guidance program to provide leadership at the school to decide who should get the scholarship. And we do not specify that it has to be the top student at the school,” he continued.
“In fact, we suggest A: that they’re going to go on to post-secondary education; and B: that they have a significant involvement in community service.”
Hilton said that the club used to have bigger and more expensive fundraisers, featuring large prizes and celebrities, but that the cost of labour and prizes made them too expensive for the club to keep hosting.
The highest the Burlington Lions Club’s membership has gotten during Hilton’s time at the organization (since 1986) was just over 110.
It currently sits at 37 or 38.
Hilton has his own explanation for the drop in numbers.
“The community has changed. It used to be the people that lived in Burlington worked in Burlington,” Hilton said. “Now over 60% of the people that live in Burlington work elsewhere. Now they might work in Hamilton.”
“If they’re working in Toronto, they leave early in the morning, they get home later in the evening, they don’t have the opportunity,” he continued.
The community has certainly changed over the years. Given the provincial population growth targets for Burlington, the developments already underway, and those to begin in the near future, change will continue. The Club is now seeking to expand their membership again; perhaps the continued growth of Burlington will offer increased opportunity for their expansion, ensuring that the community-mindedness that has long been present in our city will grow along with the city.
Regardless of population growth, the Lions Club intends to continue with their good work in Burlington; this donation to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Hamilton and Burlington shows how they continue to expand their impact.
