General News
18 November, 2025
Tasty fundraiser returns
ONE of the most delicious fundraisers of all time is back for another year, with the Lions Christmas Cake and Pudding program now in full swing. The hugely popular Christmas-themed treats have been a major fundraising project of Lions Australia since 1965 and raised more than $70 million dollars, with all proceeds from the project donated back into the wider Australian community.
Lions Christmas cakes and puddings are a big part of fundraising for a wide range of causes, including blindness prevention and medical research, through to disaster relief, aged care, drug awareness and youth programs.
This year, the cakes are available exclusively at Mitre 10 Stawell and store owner David Jones, himself one of Stawell Lions volunteers, is hoping to they’ll raise plenty of money for Lions Australia and perhaps also pick up a new member or two for Stawell’s Lions club in the process.
When asked which if the cakes and puddings is his favourite, David didn’t hesitate.
“Oh, the big boy, the 1.5 kilo,” he said while glancing across at a pile of Traditional Christmas Cake boxes, with a look on his face like he was about to rip one open and bite a chunk out of it.
Of course, 1.5 kilograms of quality Christmas cake is a bit much for anyone to knock over in one sitting, and David assures everyone “Once they’re open, they keep well,” based on his own experiences enjoying the cakes each Christmas.
The local Lions club has seen a drop off in volunteer numbers in recent times and David hopes that promoting the cakes will also provide an opportunity to promote the merit of Lions, and the important role it plays in the Stawell community.
“It’s a community organisation, we’re doing it for the community,” he said, “it’s 100 per cent volunteer run.”
David openly admits that while he’s been a longtime member of Lions, in his words he was “the worst member” because he had taken for granted the idea there’ll always be enough people volunteering and folks putting their hands up to run things.
“With my time constraints and commitments, I was leaving it all up to others,” he said, “I thought we were going along beaut, I didn’t take up a senior position in the club and I regret not doing that.”
Now the small few remaining Lions volunteers are working hard to build the club back up and Daavid would love to hear from anyone interested in being involved, saying he’s more than happy for anyone to drop by and see him at Mitre 10 for a chat about Lions.
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