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Kinsmen gear-up for 23rd Annual Homeshow

This year's event to feature jet-powered dragster BY VOICE STAFF The Fonthill and District Kinsmen are bringing a jet engine to this year’s Home and Garden Show at the Pelham Arena.
Alaina_Hillier
Alaina Hillier and her giant ear at a previous Home and Garden Show. VOICE PHOTO

This year's event to feature jet-powered dragster

BY VOICE STAFF

The Fonthill and District Kinsmen are bringing a jet engine to this year’s Home and Garden Show at the Pelham Arena.

“We wanted to something a little bit different,” said Kinsmen member Ryan McKay. “These jet dragsters are like a regular dragster that you see—very narrow, with small front tires, but with a big jet engine at the back.”

The cars can go upwards of 350 kilometres per hour, according to McKay, though this speed won’t be on display in Pelham.

“It’s going to be inside the show, and the driver will be there for a meet-and-greet,” he said. “He’ll be there to sign ‘hero cards’ and to take pictures.”

The presence of such a ferocious vehicle may seem incongruous with general do-it-yourself and home-improvement aura of the show, but Ryan did say that there are always vendors of all sorts.

“We’re still marketing it as a home and garden show, with landscaping supplies, garage doors, generators, windows and doors, that sort of thing,” said McKay. “But we’ll also have several financial institutions. There are a few subtractions this year, and a few new additions, with our mainstays returning.”

This year’s show will be the last that the Kinsmen hold in the current Pelham Arena. McKay is confident that next year’s iteration will take place in the new community centre.

“We’re looking forward to the new centre. The increase in size will help our vendors and be more user-friendly,” said McKay.

The Fonthill and District Kinsmen was founded in 1951, and since then have been raising funds in the community to give right back to it.

“With the help of our sponsors this year, Enviro-Niagara Heating and Air-Conditioning, and Mountainview Homes, we’ll raise about sixty or seventy percent of our yearly budget,” said McKay.

The other 30 or 40 percent comes from a craft show put on in the fall, and other smaller events throughout the year.

“We do a road toll in September in the Shopper Drug Mart plaza. But all the money we collect there goes to cystic fibrosis research,” explained McKay.

“A lot of our other funds go to Pelham Cares, but we’ll also be making a donation to the Welland/Pelham Special Olympics, Wellspring Cancer Centre, and the Niagara Safety Village.”

McKay said that the Kinsmen love to be a part of the community, and called Pelham a great place to raise a family.

The home show will run on April 20 from five to nine PM, April 21 from ten to five, and on April 22 from ten to four.

“We’re eagerly anticipating the weather turning,” said McKay. “We want it to be nice enough that people want to come out, but not so nice that they want to stay home and garden.”