Southern Ontario Beer Boys giving back

This was the second of two cheques Steve, right, of the Southern
Ontario Beer Boys would donate to the McMaster Children's
Hospital Foundation last week. In fact, it's the smaller of the
two. So why highlight this one? Because it came from one
single day of fundraising on September 23rd. That would be
the Brewers' Ball baseball tourney held at Collective Arts on
that day. I take some personal pride in this one because on that
beautiful Autumn day, I was part of the "fun" in fundraising.

Steve from the charitable Southern Ontario Beer Boys (@SOBeerBoys) gang of thugs and I both have an addiction issue. In fact, it's the exact same substance addiction. And while I don't like to air another man's dirty laundry in a public setting, I feel like neither of us will survive this debilitating addiction without first coming clean about it.

So what is it? Heroin? Blue Meth? Coke? Amphetamines? Steroids? LSD? Mescaline? Government-subsidized DOPE??  Oh gawd, we wish! It would probably be cheaper if it was one or any number of these common drugs.

No, ours is far more serious. (*Puts on brave face*) You see, Steve and I are hooked on Left Field Brewing's Laser Show Vermont Style Imperial IPA. At $9 per 650-ml (22 ounce) bottle, it's not a cheap addiction. We could buy almost three cans of any other craft beer for that price. And yet, he and I keep returning to the scene of the crime (the Oak Park LCBO) to score another fix. You know, I wanna say I could quit Laser Show any time I wanted but it would be an outright lie. It might never happen. Okay, it never will.

Police insiders says this may been the only known photo of the Southern
Ontario Beer Boys all in the same place at the same time. And you know
what? If they didn't do such good charity work, I'd be suspicious of the
entire lot of them. They are, in no particular order, Neil, Mike, Paul and
Steve with random young'uns and a crap-ton of donated empties. Nice!

Okay, now that I've aired our addiction woes, let's move onto something a little more positive and noble. That would be the Southern Ontario Beer Boys themselves. You see, this is the time of year where you want to see the good works of others fully displayed. Also because I do absolutely no good work for my community, I figured if I shine a bright light on the charitable work of others, well, hell, there's my contribution to society. I call that my "Pretzel Logic" because it's so bent out of shape, no one really wants to deal with its inherent flaws. So late in 2016, this band of four dudes (Neil, Mike, Paul and Steve) got together and wondered what they could do to help the community.

The Southern Ontario Beer Boys would be more
than happy to take back your empties for a good
cause - Kans4Kids which goes to the McMaster
Children's Hospital Foundation. Quick tip: it's
easier for the guys if you sort in bags of 100 per.
As a Beer Store employee, believe me, it's best
when they are already counted and easy-to-sort. 

After deliberating it over several nights of exceptional Ontario craft beers consumption, they struck upon Kans4Kids, whereby they would ask like-minded beer-loving folks to donate their empties for a good cause. The proceeds of their charity leg-work in this case would go to the McMaster Children's Hospital Foundation so, you know, a really good cause! As a father who has taken his own son to McMaster for any number of tests (from heart to hearing - you name it) over the years, I doubt they could have picked a recipient closer to my heart. The folks there are wonderful and always treat my boy like gold.

Now McMaster wasn't their first dip in the charitable waters. Paul and Steve took part "a bunch of years ago" in an event that supported Camp Trillium, the group that send kids with cancer to summer camp. But they stopped when they found out half of what is raised for the group goes to overhead costs. (Check your charities carefully - in some cases, less than 10 cents on the dollar goes to the actual goal while the rest is eaten up by executive salaries and overhead.)

Noted Steve, "We said we wanted to do something in the future where we were in control of the money we raised." They struck upon a simple solution. Cut out the middle-man - the charity organization - and become the charity themselves. Hence, the Southern Ontario Beer Boys became the number one craft beer loving charity in Ontario.

Paul, shown here, acting as one of two umpires
during the Brewers Ball baseball tournament at
the two diamonds adjacent to Collective Arts
Brewing in Hamilton, was the man who came up
with the name Kans4Kids and, hey, so far they
have done pretty well with their charity efforts.

As their Instagram followers numbers started to rise (over 2,500 now), they decided to make their charitable largesse local with an eye to McMaster. Paul suggested that they start collecting beer empties during their baseball season-end tournament from both their and other teams in the league. Paul came up with the name Kans4Kids and in the end, Steve told me, "It was a huge success, collecting three times what we thought (we would)."

Their (first ever) 2017 donation last November to the McMaster Children's Hospital Foundation was $1,463.05. That was only the beginning.

Through a work college, Steve was put in touch with Dave Clarke, the COO of Cowbell Brewing up there in tiny Blyth, Ontario. You see, Cowbell's pretty damn big on money going to children's hospitals, too, and one of the four kids' charities they regularly contribute to is McMaster.

"We spit-balled ideas over beers and the Klubs4Kids golf tournament came to fruition. (As co-sponsors) we had about eight local craft breweries sampling beers on selected holes. It was a great event, raising over $16,000 for MacKids," said Steve of the tourney held at Flamborough Golf and Country Club on May 16th.

Well, holy crap! There's our friends at Cowbell Brewing up in
the $25,000 to $49,999 category for the plaque at McMaster
Children's Hospital and just below them in the $10,000 to
$24,999 category, those Southern Ontario Beer Boys. Damn!

But it was their next event that involved me personally so pay close attention because I have a ton of friends who would say, "Donny did something for charity? Seriously? Is he dying?" To put their minds at ease, I will say I didn't do a lot but I was kind of a social media chronicler for the day, except for the pictures the guys posted themselves. Meaning simply, I took a crap-ton of pictures myself and wrote a blog about their Brewers Ball Baseball Tournament on September 23. You see, Steve asked me if I wanted to be on Team Insta, a rag-tag group of bloggers, vloggers, Instagrammers and Tweet-Heads. So, let's see. I have two shoulders that have seen far better days, a left elbow that hurts if a butterfly lands on it and a right wrist that can lift a case of beer (because the job depends on it) but can't throw a softball much more than 17 feet. Getting old is awesome, gang!!! But I promised Steve I would help him find players for Team Insta. Well, as I told him later, turns out most of beer people I know on social media live miles and miles away. I never thought about where people live. It's like I assumed they were all just down the street from me or something, I guess. So I was of little help.

Doug Birrell, the owner of 5 West Brewpub and
Kitchen, located at Walker's Line and Dundas in
Burlington, was a major contributor to this
year's Kans4Kids drive. I've known Doug for
quite some time and still he was mum on what
his restaurant donated. Of course, I found out. 

Fortunately, the guys had it covered.

While they were organizing the golf tournament, Steve noted, "At the time, I was in contact with (media liaison) Toni (Shelton) at Collective Arts (Brewing). She and (brewery co-owner) Matt Johnston said, 'Run with it' and they opened up the brewery patio to us for the day." 

In the end, it was a crazy fun day of softball, drinking, comradery, drinking, donating our empties to the cause and also drinking. We all had a blast. There was a raffle for a table full of beer that we all contributed towards and in the end, the amount of beer on the table was so huge, it got split into five prizes. There was a 50-50 draw where the winner, Ken, also known as the Ontario Beer Guy (@ontariobeerguy) turned around and handed that cash right back to the boys. In the end, that single day of softball collected $1,150.

But the Southern Ontario Beer Boys weren't done yet. There was still the year-end totals from the Kans4Kids drive, which the guys get to the hospital towards the end of November, just before the Christmas holiday season. Remember last year's was upwards of $1,400? Well, they kinda blew past by that number this year - big-time - with a cheque totaling $3,153.25. That means over the course of, oh say, 16 months, the four guys have raised over $22,000 for McMaster.

Tiffany Martin, better knows as the Travelling
Pint on Twitter and Instagram, gives us a big
"Peace Out, Homeys" as Team Insta shut down
their opponents after an inning at the Brewers
Ball Baseball Tournament back in September.

But Steve had special praise for one business in Burlington for their help with this year's Kans4Kids drive - 5 West Brewpub and Kitchen at the corner of Walker's Line and Dundas in Burlington. And that's interesting to me because the owner, Doug Birrell, and I have known each other for, well, more than a few years. So, of course, I asked the rather large Scotsman what his Kans4Kids exact contribution was. He shrugged it off. "Massive amount." Okayyy. Well, I do know that Steve lives in that neighbourhood and figured he might be a 5 West regular. So I pitched that and Doug gave me a little more. "Yes, Steve came in and was telling us about the (Kans4Kids) program," Doug said. "Steve is a great guy." Okay, folks, here's the numbers. Steve calculated that 75% of this year's total came from 5 West. In cash, that equals about $2,365. In empties? That's over 20,000 returns. Nice job, Doug. I live in Oakville now but I have to make a point to get over there and check 5 West out since they switched to brew-pub. I'm sure Steve's up for a pint or two.

In the end, it's been a busy but rewarding year for the Southern Ontario Beer Boys. All that money and hey, they're on the donation plaque at McMaster, something that still blows the guys away. "That's crazy to us," he laughed. "But it's funny as people will now ask forever, 'Who the heck are the Southern Ontario Beer Boys?' Crazy." Anything but crazy, my friend. More like exactly the kind of story we all need as the holiday season descends upon us. It's the season of giving. But these four do that all year long. Okay, Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that all and I am outtta here. Back soon with some big Movember fun at Nickel Brook. Until next time, I remain...