saturday after thanksgiving so we start off the saturday after thanksgiving it's been the next saturday and the following saturday we have three deliveries all coming down from nova scotia and we start off we start selling it and i'm the morning on saturday morning oh boy gentlemen there started it and few years after that helen keller came to the to the lions and said would you become the knights for the blind which is really our mission is to help solve blindness and help with i research so locally the belmont lions help we collect classes we help donate money and we're part of a larger group within the state of massachusetts that's the mass i an ear researchers and i believe since one nine hundred fifty s have donated for thirty million that at specific places you know it's a community vehicle so it's not just about my clients we we can arrange for it to be available for certain events but it's as mentioned it's a shared vehicle initially as you mentioned we are strictly for  research and now they broaden it to sight and hearing as well as blood pressure within the vamp or that within the mobile so it's it's not always on the go and it's not always at a certain location but it will certainly advertisers you'll see information when it's yes how soon as i mentioned earlier the let's improve our communities certainly a slogan of the lions internationally the community here in belmont we helped with raising funds with christmas trees as i mentioned we started selling trees back in one nine hundred fifty seven know there's lots of communities out there selling trees and lots of charity selling them so keep keep all those guys active as well but certainly feel free to stop by if you're not buying the treatments you get a wreath we have cemetery decorations as well we often have candy canes and coloring books for the little kids and the big kids but our organization also chooses those the king lion the leader of the group selects a new charity each year for what we called the tips so if people feel or have a little extra money that they want to give away besides just purchasing the treats we have a tip jar in the tip jar as you mentioned it selected each year to a different charity event this year it's for belmont sport which is a special program organized for recreation time it's a program developed for special needs residents and it's a really important program and i recommend you check out the website as well as for belmont sports business it's a great group for sure that's f and also to answer a question i hold as the we do help out the students at belmont high school as well with scholarships and things of that nature so we're very much into the community of people need i examine certainly you know get in touch with all my lines if there's collections we also have in the first for the street level of the belmont train station which is the belmont lions clubhouse as we call it there's a slot in the door that i guess would be considered a mail slot that you could fly glasses in there we've got a collection box on the other side we exactly there are many clubs many towns in massachusetts have clubs and we donate to a larger fund and then that fund it moves up to the international level sold to the international committee gets to decide which   vents if you will or tragedies are recipients of the funds but we're happy to help out in any capacity we can so when i say let's improve our community our community is belmont but then it becomes the county the state of new england make it more usable the building is also available other people will rent the building for different uses and it's just great to be part of community and be still visible as you know the christmas trees are right up there in that delta and we have people going to horn driving by sometimes bringing coffee sometimes you know hot chocolate or donuts or whatever it is but as i may have mentioned earlier we're all volunteers so we're out there you know i guess missing our families as well but maybe there's they're happy that we're out selling trees that but we were there every day starting the saturday after thanksgiving until we sell out of trees just so you know none of us get paid we have some other people who come in volunteers some students help us out in fact some of the athletic teams from belmont high school come down and unload the trucks with us as well as some of the students come in and help decorate the reeds so we sell about two thousand wreaths each year also does come down from the same farm in nova scotia completely undecorated so a lot of behind the scenes work is taking to tie the pine cones together to tie the holly berries together and then make them available for the students as well as a couple of the alliance members to decorate all two thousand of these and they also  shows up and whatever team is available that day helping us unload the tree will foist it on their shoulders and it's wow twenty five foot tree yourself and it's it's often humorous to see the students carrying it down because it seems like all twenty of us can carry this and then  under the under the bridge and halfway up leonard street and start to have weak knees and and see what happens but eventually they make it and it's a it's a great site and again very community oriented so we're happy to help donate that tree and make that a part of you know the belmont tradition great question i think people just assume that the trees are brought out from the building every every morning we stick them out there however the trees come down from nova scotia same farm we've been using for many years and they give us the best balsam and they know that we're going to get them every year from one of the largest resellers of trees in this region so they you know they know that we're a good customer and they come down and we unload the truck the truck will show up as you mentioned from canada whenever it arrives it could be two in the morning  and the driver just stays there until we come there to unload it but according to the weather and crossing the border it could take considerably longer to get here but we help one load at the trees are then put on the delta and they're always available to be  sold however if there's horrible weather which we didn't luckily we didn't have it last year but prior years we've had a lot of snow storms bring as many trees we can inside the building to thaw out because the snow doesn't disappear in the trees or cold so we saw them out we put a tarp on and we take the best care we can of these trees so they're easily sold and i guarantee it everyone finds the perfect tree which is an amazing feat in them where they're selling over two thousand trees every year yeah people will look past one tree and then the next couple will come and get that tree so volunteers and we have about sixty generally a fourteen's team two is generally known as the best team ladies but we have four teams of the members that are split up we also have a bullpen of other guys that are helping during the day and we typically have about six to six to twelve helping out at a time there are also a couple students that help us out in the early afternoon or midafternoon timeframe because many of the gentlemen are working and come in after work so we generally stay there you know several hours after dinner time let's say to help out and again depending on the weather or the business the doors close or stay open longer if the lights are on their house and i'll add a lot of the electrical work was redone by some of our members as well to make it much brighter and much safer there as well as i think it sounds like that is a wonderful experience for the put the high school kids as well to have the involved we certainly agree and i know that the belmont school system requires the volunteer time but it's great to see some of the kids there not just there to get their five dollars or ten hours in there certainly very very helpful when you get old guys but not don't you got some of the older dogs out there trying to live trees it gets tiresome and we move as i say we're there every day you know snowy days rainy days cold days when you're you know rushing out to get a tree in fifteen minutes so we're out there the whole time but i'd like to became international with i think currently they have over two hundred countries have lancelot how so it's the largest organization of its kind and the belmont line certainly became part of it they were sponsored by another group  m so that was a fairly an abandoned building and with some renovations a few years later we took it over and began running it so now we own that train stations and keep it up and maintain the you know the building so that it's you know it's a beautiful presentation for the entire of a board that meets monthly that decides you know who the funds can go to we don't have unlimited funds but everything that we raise so in the trees every dollar that's profit we don't so we're not making anything there are certain we have to pay the expenses of getting the trees down here but everything is donating so we do our best to make sure that every is getting a little piece of what we can offer and if we can't help we'll certainly try to you know direct them in a proper direction where they can get very important organization also and community involvement and it's interesting you say that because we have actually generations that have bought when they were kids or bought when their grandparents like trees and it's not just the belmont differences we have people from cambridge and watertown and wall them but we also have people coming as far as cape cod every year to tie a tree in the top of the car and drive back last year we have some of from vermont we have people from connecticut so we've actually had people come in a cab to pick up a tree and drive it home we've had convertibles show up you know it's great and we're happy to help tide on or tie it in or stuff it in a trunk if we have to and it becomes more of a an event rather than just a purchase so many local families bring a wagon and will carve it back or the one that yeah it's great so just you know be sure not to just think of us as guys who are selling trees because we're out there to raise as much funds as we can mostly sell all of them we always sell all the always so that our goal is to sell out would rather not have money spent and wasted if you will by buying another twenty trees we know there are other venues you can purchase triodes and we're happy again we're all volunteer so if we sell out on the twentieth or twenty first we can kind of see our family during the holidays and put some of our families love it sounds wonderful can yeah  on what's going on