Category Archives: News

Cooling a Hot Clam Festival Crowd

Lime Rickey and the new all-natural Lemon Lucy slush drink refresh Yarmouth Clam Festival attendees

[Yarmouth, Maine – July 20, 2019] With soaring humidity and temperatures hitting the mid and upper-90’s, attendees of the 2019 Yarmouth Clam Festival are dealing with one of the hottest weekends on record. This 3-day event typically draws over 120,000 visitors to the town of Yarmouth, Maine, making it one of the most popular Summer-time events in Southern Maine.

Despite the heat, thousands of people are enjoying all that the Clam Fest has to offer, relying on two of the festival’s staple beverages to keep the fun going: The Lime Rickey, sold by the Downeasters Barbershop Chorus, and the new Lemon Lucy slush offered by the Yarmouth Lions Club.

So Happy Together: Lemon Lucy and Lime Ricky

Yarmouth Lions Club members Larry Forcier and Aaron Wilson invent the Lemon Lucy slush drink

In 2018, two members of the Yarmouth Lions Club, Larry Forcier and Aaron Wilson, had developed a recipe for a lemon slush drink using 100% all-natural ingredients. They worked out a way to mass-produce it for Clam Fest, but were not sure what to call it. Knowing that the Lime Rickey had became the “must have” item at the Clam Fest food court for decades, the Lions decided on the name Lemon Lucy, as a nod to the Ricky and Lucy characters from classic TV series “I Love Lucy” starring Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball (who were real-life husband and wife). “We know that the Lime Rickey is beloved at Clam Fest,” said Larry Forcier, “so introducing the Lemon Lucy as a companion, but completely unique beverage in that it is the only lemon slush drink at Clam Fest, made the name a perfect choice.”

The 2018 Lemon Lucy pilot was a success, so Larry and Aaron figured out a way to ramp up Lemon Lucy production for the 2019 Clam Fest, without compromising freshness or quality. The only thing that was left to do was to get the word out.

Lions Club member Jim Albright, took to the streets (literally and digitally) with a multi-channel marketing campaign designed to not only inform would-be Lemon Lucy fans about the new slush drink, but also build awareness that 100% of all proceeds from Lemon Lucy sales go directly back into the community. The Lions Club is the only food vendor at Clam festival who donates all of their Clam Fest profits to supporting local nonprofits and service organizations.

Jim Albright creates marketing buzz for the new Lemon Lucy slush at the Yarmouth, Maine Clam Festival — Jim Albright creates marketing buzz for the new Lemon Lucy slush drink at the Yarmouth, Maine Clam Festival. 100% of proceeds from Lemon Lucy sales will fund local service organizations and projects.

Clam Fest Reactions to Lemon Lucy Slush

The Lemon Lucy promotion videos that Jim had produced have stacked over 1 million views on social media, and given the hot weather, local media outlets are reporting that Clam Festival visitors can cool off with both Lime Rickey AND Lemon Lucy. As of this writing, thousands of Lemon Lucy slush drinks have been purchased, already beating 2018 sales. This means that thousands of dollars will be donated to local service groups to help those in need.

Learn more about the Yarmouth Lions Club Lemon Lucy slush drink at www.yarmouthlionsclub.org/lemonlucy.

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Big Community Support of Lions Vision Program

Yarmouth Lions Thank Town for Record Number of Eyeglasses Donations

The Notes – January 28, 2019

The Yarmouth Lions Club wishes to thank the many people in and around Yarmouth, Maine who have donated their used eyeglasses, lenses, and eyeglass cases to the Lions Clubs International Recycle for Sight program in 2018. Lions Club member, Doug Carney, has been faithfully shepherding this the Club’s eyeglasses recycling program in Yarmouth, and reports that the Club had collected 1,512 eyeglasses over the last year – an amazing 77% increase over 2017!

Lions Club eyeglasses donation box located at the Hannaford Pharmacy counter in Yarmouth, Maine — Lions Club eyeglasses donation box located at the Hannaford Pharmacy
counter in Yarmouth, Maine

All donated eyeglasses are collected, then processed by the regional Lions Eyeglass Recycling Center to then be distributed to people in developing countries where they have the greatest need.

A special thank you also to the five Yarmouth businesses below that currently host the eyeglass collection boxes:
• Hannaford Supermarket (Pharmacy Counter): 756 US Rt. 1
• Maine Optometry PA (Front Entrance): 407 US Rt 1, Freeport
• Merrill Memorial Library (Front Entrance): 215 Main Street
• Yarmouth Recycling & Transfer Station (Book Shed): 659 East Main Street
• Bayview Dental Associates (Front Entrance): 247 Portland Street

The Lions would greatly appreciate the continued participation and support from the community for this very worthy cause. To learn more, visit the Lions Vision program page, or contact Doug Carney at 846-0863 for more information.

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Lions Club wins 1st place in Clam Fest Parade

The Yarmouth Lions Club won 1st place in the annual Clam Festival Parade float contest for non-profit organizations

The Notes – August 6, 2018 (by Doug Carney)

The float was the brain-child of Jim Albright, a Lion since 2017, and a marketing wizard and creative performer.

The float was a white stretch limousine, lent to the club by Lindquist Funeral Home, decorated with Lions Club decals, and driven by Lion Dave Floryan. The limo was outfitted with powerful loud speakers, obtained by Lion Greg Hughes and donated by Headlight Audio Visual of Portland, playing Michael Jackson hit tunes from the 80’s in keeping with the theme of the parade, “Totally 80’s.”

Jim Albright, dressed as Michael Jackson – the hat, gloves, jacket, pants, socks and shoes – danced, spun around, jerked, and moonwalked his way to the music throughout the parade. If you saw Jim, you didn’t forget him!

(from left) Jim Albright, Bob Swan, Dave Floryan, Jean Swan, Greg Hughes, and Sandy Bowie

Jim was accompanied by Bob and Jean Swan, Greg Hughes, and Sandy Bowie “working the crowd” and occasionally performing their own dance moves choreographed by Jim.

The book on Jim Albright’s performance?

“He WAS Michael Jackson!”

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Yarmouth Lions Bring Cool to Clam Fest

A staple of the Yarmouth Clam Festival, the Yarmouth Lions Club are ramping up community service awareness, food and fun

– July 16, 2018

The Yarmouth Lions Club has been participating at the Yarmouth Clam Festival for over 50 years, but this year, they are ramping up fundraising efforts to do more good in our town, and within Maine.

This year’s Clam Festival parade theme is “Totally 80’s”, so the Yarmouth Lions thought it would be fun if the King of the Jungle became the King of Pop. During the parade, club members will be dancing behind a Michael Jackson “Thriller” themed limousine to re-recorded Michael Jackson favorites about what it means to be a Lion. A preview video was released earlier this week on Facebook, and already has over 8,000 views. You can view the video here:

In addition, the Lions Club will be bringing a new drink to Clam Fest called the Lemon Lucy. It is the only all natural hand-made lemon slush drink at the festival. The drink and the name was chosen as a nod to the classic TV series, I Love Lucy, as companion to the popular Lime Rickey, sold by the Downeasters choral group. When trialed during last year’s Clam Festival, the Lemon Lucy got rave reviews. See the Lemon Lucy testimonial video:

What make the Lions Club different from all the other food vendors at Clam Fest is that they give 100% of all proceeds from food purchases to local community service organizations. Some of these groups include the food pantry, Yarmouth Cares About Neighbors (YCAN), and the Iris Network. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated over the years, and just recently, the Yarmouth Lions were able to use funds from last year’s Clam Fest to help the Yarmouth Fire and Rescue department purchase an emergency UTV, which will make its service debut at the Yarmouth Clam Festival.

Yarmouth Lions contributed to Utility 1, Yarmouth Fire & Rescue’s new UTV, which begins service at the 2018 Clam Festival

The Lions have extended their booth space this year to ensure they can meet food demand, and are looking forward to not only continuing their service to Yarmouth and surrounding communities, but having lots of fun.

Learn to learn more about the Yarmouth Lions Club at the Yarmouth Clam Festival, visit yarmouthlions.org/clamfest.

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Update on New Yarmouth Community Center

Yarmouth Community Center Steering Committee Continue Search for Available Locations

The Notes – April 3, 2018

At the March 19th meeting of the Yarmouth Lions Club held at the Muddy Rudder Restaurant, Horace and Barbara Horton, longtime Yarmouth residents, and co-chairs of the Steering Committee for the Yarmouth Community Center, gave an excellent presentation on the efforts of the steering committee, to locate a suitable piece of land on which to build a much needed Yarmouth Community Center.

Horace and Barbara Horton present possible locations for a new Yarmouth Community Center

As Yarmouth has grown in population, the needs of the community have outstripped the facilities to provide these necessary services. For example, 91 families, numbering nearly 300 people, currently use the Yarmouth Food Pantry, which was not originally designed to support such great demand. Other services, such as medical equipment assistance, a meeting center, and youth support, are all located at disparate, and often inadequate sites. Numerous properties have been surveyed and several options close to the center of town are deemed feasible sites.

The goal of the steering committee is to identify a location for the community center, then raise the funds necessary for this undertaking through private donations. Various parties, including prospective donors, sellers, the Town Council, and the school department, are involved in the tedious acquisition process.

After the Lions met with the Hortons, we learned that the School Board voted to retain all of the property around the Rowe School for future expansion and parking needs. Therefore, the Yarmouth Community Center Steering Committee is researching other potential locations near the center of Town.

The Lions Club is very thankful and appreciative of the efforts of the Hortons and the steering committee to fulfill the needs of the Town of Yarmouth, and we look forward to supporting them in the future.

Yarmouth Lions 1st VP, Alan Lambert (center) with Barbara (left) and Horace (right) Horton of the Yarmouth Community Center Steering Committee

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