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Chilliwack Lions Make Major PPE/Cleaning Product Donation to Chilliwack Alano Club

Chilliwack – Over the last few years, the Chilliwack Alano Club has been quietly fighting to stay alive and relevant in the recovery community. The Alano is not a shelter, treatment facility or a soup kitchen nor is it church based. Therefore, there are funding streams which the Alano Society (which operates the club) started in the late 1940’s, does not qualify for.

In 2019, the club realized that is had to be more aggressive to let people know that they are a clean and social community gathering place. It’s much more than a home for AA and other 12 step meetings. It hosts business meetings in their main room, which can be rented out. One caveat, you can serve coffee, but no alcohol and drug use is a no go.

From that, some local media picked up the torch and got the word out. At the same time, many BC recovery and Alano clubs were under a revue from BC Gaming. Some of these facilities did not file proper paperwork. Having said that, these clubs are run by volunteers with little or no legal experience. This, in part, is what happened in Chilliwack.

Also in 2019, Dave Lock of Lock’s Pharmacy , who did not know much about the Alano, came on to the Board as a board member at large. That spawned interest from Chilliwack Rotary. A major presentation to a Rotary lunch followed. That also included Lock’s holding a benefit concert outside of their store by the band “Chilliwack” and a raffle of a guitar helped to create financial aid.

Recently, Chilliwack Lions (Dogwood Monarch Lions Club) made a significant donation to the Alano with PPE and cleaning products that would have put a strain on the Alano’s already paper thin budget.

Lee Phillipson was part of a Lions tour of the facility and told FVN:

Pascale and I met with Debbie at the Alano Club.. Our donation was well needed and they expressed their sincere gratitude. We toured the facility which has a beautiful courtyard garden maintained by members. This is a sobriety support facility. They have a beautiful commercial kitchen with plans to be selling food soon.

The joy of this gift of giving (some $500+ of product) was definitely felt by all🙏Your club does amazing things…. even facilitating miracles 🙏. We are so grateful for your support of our community!!

Alano President George Pound (l) and VP “Radio” Don Lehn (r)

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