Despite the heavy rain, members of the Brantford Lions Club spent the morning cleaning up trash during their inaugural Gilkinson Flats Cleanup event on Saturday, May 23, 2026.
With gloves on and garbage bags in hand, members focused on areas along Gilkison and Edge Streets, as well as amongst the grass in and around the Lions Club home. From plastic wrappers to clothing scraps, liquor bottles, styrofoam and more, they collected a range of litter.
Longtime Lions Club member Scott Dillabough said that the Gilkison Flats area is used often and that trash tends to get scattered about. He said the event was all about doing their part to create a cleaner, healthier environment for the community.
“You can see the trash along the side of the road while you’re driving, and of course a lot of this accumulated over the winter and now that everything’s melted you can really see it,” he said. “This is our Lions Club home so we just want to try and keep it clean for everybody that uses it.”
Club president Randi-Lynn Jancik added that environmental stewardship is one of Lions Club International’s main areas of focus along with hunger, vision, youth, disaster relief, humanitarian efforts, childhood cancer and diabetes.
“The environment is one of the Lions Club’s eight pillars, so it’s one of the things we try to tackle and support,” she said.
Jancik said that while the rain may have deterred people from joining the cleanup, the group were still powering on.
“We’re a little wet and we had a small turnout, which I’m certain is due to all this rain, but it’s been going fairly well,” she said. “We’ve found all sorts of trash so far, everything from home-made chopsticks to underwear, socks, and a ski-mask too.
The club president added that they’re looking to host the event annually, and encouraged people to keep an eye out for the 2027 Gilkison Flats Cleanup.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
