Amy Collins
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 30/03) - The local Elk's Club gave $29,000 during their Monday meeting.

Cheques were handed out at the start of the meeting in the upper hall of the club.

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) received $8,000.

The proceeds came from a lobster dinner the Elk's Club put on for the organization's benefit.

"The dinner is the newest fundraising event," CNIB regional director Christina Vernon said about the Elk's Club's ongoing contributions.

The CNIB was also given an extra $1,000 that will be going towards its sixth annual golf tournament, taking place at the Yellowknife Golf Club on July 18.

The tournament will help raise funds to allow the CNIB to continue to provide services to the blind and vision impaired in the North.

"We really, really appreciate the Elk's support," Vernon said.

Robert Collinson, chairperson for the Elk's financial assistance committee, was modest about the donations.

"They asked, we gave," said Collinson.

"It's a good cause, especially in the territories where you don't have access to services like in the South."

The Elk's Club gave the Yellowknife Food Bank $5,000.

"They're being generous to us again this year," said president Dave Ritchie. "It's more than we would expect."

The cheque will be needed since more people are using the organization's services.

The food bank spends around $40,000 a year buying groceries.

"This money will allow us to operate for more than a month," Ritchie said.

Collinson said that money requests have to fit the criteria and guidelines the club follows.

"We won't sponsor a peewee hockey team to go to a tournament or school field trips. Otherwise, up here, that's all we'd do," said Collinson, adding that the club prefers to focus on kids and families.

That's why the Elk's Club also donated $15,000 to the Kids Help Line.

For the past 12 years the club has 'matched' the funds raised by the annual bowl-a-thon.

With the Elk's donation, the Kids Help Line received a total of $55,000 this year.

"The contribution works as a tremendous incentive for us to sell the event," said Mary Linn, president of the NWT Five-Pin Bowler's Association. "We'd never have this kind of success without the Elk's Club."

The money will go towards helping the administration run the service and pay the professional counsellors manning the phones in Toronto.

The counsellors answer approximately 1,000 calls per day, with four coming from the NWT.