Lions Club of Pennsylvania collects food and items for Kentucky tornado relief
CRANBERRY TWP. — The Lions Club of Pennsylvania has collected items to send to Kentucky to help with the victims of the deadly and destructive tornadoes that occurred there in December.
More: Donations collected in Brighton Twp. for tornado victims
Riverside Lions Club King Lion Chip Campbell said all 17 districts in Pennsylvania contributed to the donation drive.
Representatives and clubs from seven districts, including the six in the western part of the state, held their donation collection Friday at the parking lot of the Lowes Home Improvement store in Cranberry Township.
Campbell said anything one can imagine was donated, from clothing, tools, appliances, furniture, food and other necessary supplies.
“There’s going to be a lot of stuff on that truck,” he said.
The drop-off in Cranberry was the final of three stops, which the other two locations being in Christiana and Harrisburg.
The truck that was supposed to arrive in Cranberry for the drop-off was filled from the first two stops, forcing the Lions to get another truck.
Lions Club District 14B Governor Mary Ann Belles, which includes Allegheny County, said her district helped donate items such as 30 cases of water, shovels, electric cords and pallets of apples.
District 14N, which includes Beaver and Lawrence counties, raised more than $6,000 for spending, according to District Governor Jeffrey Loudermilk.
The items that were purchased included kerosene heaters, red and yellow gas cans, generators and carbon dioxide filters, electric cords, shovels, rakes, heavy brooms, large tarps with tie-downs, chainsaws, clothes for children and adults, buckets, different food items, heavy-duty construction trash bags, work gloves, flashlights and batteries, diapers, Pampers, Depends, Band-Aids, toothbrushes, soap, cleaning supplies and disinfectant wipes.
The Lions Club even received a truck of donations from Paper Products Company Inc.
From Cranberry, the supplies will be driven to Utica, Ky. International Lions Club President Douglas X. Alexander will be in Kentucky personally to receive the supplies.
For Campbell, this is the second big giveaway event the Lions Club has been a part of recently, with the first being the donation of supplies in October 2020 to hurricane victims in Louisiana.
More: Lions Clubs donate to aid Louisiana in hurricane aftermath
He said the Lions Club and its members are always willing to go out of their way to help anybody in need any way they can.
“We love it. That’s what we do. That’s what the Lions do,” Campbell said.
More: Lions Club receives goggles, hand sanitizer for the county
Nicholas Vercilla is a staff reporter for the Beaver County Times and Ellwood City Ledger. He can be reached at nvercilla@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Ellwood City Ledger: Lions Club of Pennsylvania collects items for Ky. tornado relief
