Two actors struggle with each other on the stage as the audience erupts in laughter.
A 10-year-old grabs the puck in a local hockey tournament, takes a quick look and sends his teammate into the clear for a breakaway.
The food bank needs help – and suddenly that help arrives.
The Drayton Kinsmen represent the best of small town living; neighbours helping neighbours and people working as volunteers to help make their community just a little bit better than the year before.
The Drayton Kinsmen are an organization of young men interested in “serving the community’s greatest need.” And there are plenty of needs.
Through a variety of service projects, fundraisers, business meetings and socials, club members enjoy personal development, fellowship and a satisfaction through teamwork.
The Drayton Kinsmen are part of a much larger Association of Kinsmen and Kinette Clubs of Canada.
Kin is an all-Canadian service organization founded in Hamilton in 1920. The national association provides a framework for over 900 clubs across Canada.
The national association has raised more service dollars per member than any community service club in the world. The association of Kin stresses personal development through community service.
The Kinsmen are more than just a service club, although its list of groups helped is long and impressive. Members also get to meet new friends, have good times, good conversation, improve their organizational skills and obtain self satisfaction, business contacts, a night out, business skills, political skills, competition, fun, administrative skills, awards, speaking skills and a better family environment.
The Kinsmen Club of Drayton is justifiably proud of what it has done in its community.
John Green remembers the club was chartered in 1968 in April or May. He said he and Larry Schill, a fellow member, talked about how the club came from a farm community and should do something for farmers. They decided on a banquet and got George Jones from the University of Guelph to speak. That event went over so well, Green remembers suggesting for the following year to get federal Minister of Agriculture Eugene Whelan to come to Drayton.
He said he remembers club members thought that was impossible, but Green had some connections and Whelan arrived in due course. The next year, Dennis Timbrell had just been appointed provincial Minister of Agriculture and he, too, agreed to be the guest speaker. That was the start of the Drayton Farm Show – a much smaller version of what it is today.
Green said the idea of joining an all-Canadian organization with clubs across the province was appealing in those days. He remembers club members providing Drayton Kinsmen with ideas for community projects and said the building of the PMD arena from 1976 to 1980 proved to be important to the club’s growth. He remembers that many of the members were younger then and they supplied a lot of physical labour – which was good since they did not have much money.
Green himself went on to become Deputy-Governor, District Governor, and national President of the Kinsmen.
Hundreds of projects
Members have completed hundreds of projects. Among them are an addition to now, the Agricultural Society building, the purchase of a rescue van and the Jaws of Life for the local fire department, the development of ball parks and soccer fields, and a huge contribution to the Peel Maryborough Drayton arena Complex.
Those are only a few examples of what Kinsmen has done for the community.
Kinsmen support
The Kinsmen Club of Drayton provides support to a wide range of causes. Over the years those have also included: minor ball, hockey soccer figure skating, the Scouts, school trips and activities Kinsmen ball and soccer fields, the Moorefield Optimist Park and Playgrounds, The Drayton Festival Theatre, community theatre groups, youth theatre, the Drayton Farmers Market, seniors outings and foster children
The club has also aided the fire department and Pregnancy Crisis Centre, the Cystic Fibrosis Research International Development (Cystic Fibrosis is the major cause of the international club and all clubs participate in the work to find a cure and ease the lives of those who suffer from it) the area United Way and the area food bank as well as helping to fund MS research.
The club is very concerned with children and provides anti-drug programs including a local Chicken Club, as well as bicycle safety courses.
It supports the Heart & Stroke Foundation and the Ontario March of Dimes.
It also provides financial help to local 4-H programs for children and the local Agricultural Society.
Activities and fundraisers
The Kinsmen Club of Drayton organizes a wide range of activities for the benefit of the community and to raise funds to help support its many community causes.
Many of those events are annual. Over the years have included the Drayton Farm Show, one of the club’s largest fundraisers. Often in communities, events come and go as people lose interest or the driving forces behind them slow down or even move away from the area.
But the Drayton Farm Show has been popular since its inception and it endures. This year on April 6 and 7 the club will celebrate its 30th annual event at the PMD arena.
While that is a big event, the club has kept busy over the years with a number of other events, including:
– Drayton Home Show;
– dances and dinners;
– banquets;
– soap box derby;
– bike rodeos;
– street dances;
– family fun days;
– raffles, draws;
– food drives;
– Christmas tree sales;
– parades
– charity auctions;
– barbecues
– karaoke nights and air band contests; and
– Proud to be Canadian events and Raise the Flag events.
The Farm Show is the Drayton Kinsmen’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Thanks to the revenue from that show it can support many of the community’s greatest needs.
