News : Thanks to those who made Lions scrap metal drive a huge success!

Lions Club members helped collect more than 40 tons of scrap metal during their May event.

A huge THANKS to everyone who contributed to the May 10 Vinton Lions Scrap Metal Fundraiser. This idea came from Lions in New Hampton. Iowa, and it was really a winner.

Local businesses including Barnes Furniture, Nick’s TV and Appliances, and Michael and Dowd Furniture gave us their non-working appliance trade-in stockpiles and a great many area residents cleaned out their basements and garages to yield 22.5 gross tons of scrap metal and 19.29 tons of appliances, hauled away in 7.5 30-foot roll-outs and 2 semi-trailers by our commercial partner, A-Line Metals of Waterloo.

Club member Pat Lyons and Ideal Industries let us use their spacious yard and employees (Greg Becker, Lynn Henkle, Brad Mulinex, Lee Schwenker and Marshall Whitaker) put in the Saturday to run fork lifts and equipment safely. There were no injuries or accidents and the only challenge was keeping up with the incoming donations. Donors with trucks full of scrap were lining up at the site well before our advertised 8 a.m. start time. Over thirty members helped on the day of the event and several others were involved ahead of time with curbside pick-up and publicity. Special thanks to project chair Rick Ohrt for coordinating this first-time effort.

A-Line Metals, our business partner, brought 30-foot roll-outs to the site, ferrying the scrap back to their home in Waterloo and bringing empty containers to us. It was a spectacular success we are hoping to repeat.

Proceeds will be used to help fund a wide variety of local projects, and area/state/national Lions endeavors.

About the photo: With the A-Line metals employee who delivered the roll-out now filled with scrap, and one of the semi-trailers in the background, Lions Dennis Lausar, Rick Hadley and Larry Druschel smile at the quantity of scrap donated as they sort and load scrap at the fundraiser. It was a productive day. Proceeds will go to a wide variety of local projects and Lions Club International causes such as vision screening and remediation and guide dog programs.