Community Corner

Lemont Lions to Host Friday Night Fundraiser

In connection with November being Diabetes Awareness month, the Lemont Lions Club will host a benefit beginning at 7:30 p.m. Friday, at Front Street Cantina.

The plight of diabetes has become so common that most everyone knows someone who has been affected.

For Lemont Lions Club member Doug Wright, that person was his brother.

“He was diagnosed with colon cancer when he was 38 and as a byproduct of some of his cancer treatments he became diabetic,” Wright said.

Twenty-two years after being cancer-free, his brother was taken by diabetes.

“He’d had a quadruple bypass, and amputation of most of one of his legs. He was on dialysis. He had all kinds of health problems,” Wright said. “The diabetes ended up killing him, not the cancer.”

These days, Wright and fellow members of the Lemont Lions Club have adopted diabetes awareness as a long-term commitment.

In connection with November being Diabetes Awareness month, the Lemont Lions Club will host a fundraiser to support diabetes awareness and prevention beginning at 7:30 p.m. Friday, at .

“The Lions have embraced (diabetes awareness) because of the correlation between diabetes and vision,” said Wright, also a member of the Lions of Illinois Foundation.

The Lemont Lions Club holds several fundraisers throughout the year.

Donations from Friday’s event will be used locally for providing assistance to sight and hearing programs and regionally for support of the Lions of Illinois Foundation's programs for hearing and visually impaired — such as Camp Lions, low vision screenings, the hearing and sight mobile screening units and many others.

During Friday’s event, Lions Club members will have information about diabetes available. There will also be raffles. Front Street Cantina plans to donate a percentage of their sales to the Lions Club, and there will be a few guest bartenders donating their time and tips, including Supervisor Steve Rosendahl and current Lemont Lions Club president Tim Berner.

Wright’s band, The Fort Awesome Band, will provide musical entertainment along with the local high school band Conor Matthews and 4:16.

Despite the complications that come with a diabetes diagnosis, Wright said there are some who consider the disease benign.

“It really in a negative sense is a holistic disease in that the spectrum of things it affects is quite large,” he said.


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