Organized by the Lions Club, the event served as an opportunity for locals to get together for a delicious feast, while raising money for the charity organization.

According to one of the event’s main organizers and longtime Lions club member Eric Smith, lobster dinners were quite commonplace with the club around three decades ago.

The event consisted of a sit-down dinner accompanied by several speeches from a number of special guests including five-time Paralympic gold medalist Todd Nicholson.

For Nicholson, the invitation to speak at the event was humbling. Having lived in a wheelchair for a large portion of his life yet still making a huge impact as a world-class athlete he was grateful to be in a position to galvanize others and motivate them to do great things of their own.

“The opportunity to come over and tell my story and where I’m from and what I’ve been able to accomplish in my life,” he said. “Hopefully it inspires somebody in this room to go out and try something different, try something new.”

A native of Ottawa, Nicholson has strong ties with the Municipality of Shawville and some of the Lions Club members, and the initiative put forth by the organization means a lot to him personally.

“You know, one of the things they’re looking at doing is making it more accessible,” he said. “As somebody who lives every day in a chair and looks at accessibility, I think it’s great that they’re taking the initiative in order to create an inclusive space for everybody to be able to have access to”

“Regardless of whether you have a disability or not, when it comes to the buttons on the doors, when it comes to lifts, all that sort of stuff, it makes life so much easier for everybody else,” he added.

With significant demand amongst members and residents for better access to the building he felt like putting on the first lobster dinner at the hall in a long time was the right thing to do.

“We have a really nice hall,” he said. “We wanted to make it accessible for everybody.

A number of volunteers sold drinks from the bar, while others worked hard in the kitchen preparing the meals for the hundreds in attendance.

Along with the mouth-watering batch of one and a half pound lobsters from P.E.I. was a wide range of tasty meal items including steak, potatoes and coleslaw among other things.

Delighted with the turnout after a sold-out event, Smith is intending on bringing back the lobster supper next year for a second edition.

All proceeds from the event will be dedicated towards purchasing and installing an elevator at the club to make it more accessible, Smith said.

Lions Club members and cooks for the evening Steve Sutton, Robert St-Amour, Chris Graham and John Carmichael pose for a group photo.

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