MIDDLEBURY — At its annual awards banquet on Monday, the Middlebury Lions Club formally pledged $25,000 to the Middlebury Volunteer Ambulance Association (MVAA), which is raising money to pay for its new headquarters just north of Porter Medical Center.
Outgoing Lions Club President Dave Nourse presented the first of five annual $5,000 checks to Mickey and Carol Heinecken, who are spearheading the MVAA fund-raising effort. 
“We are delighted that the members of the Lions Club have chosen to support the cause at this level,” said Mickey Heinecken, the former Middlebury College football coach. “This is a significant contribution on their part, and it sets a great tone from our community in the early stages of the campaign.”
The Heineckens are working with more than 50 other volunteers to raise $1 million to pay for the new MVAA facility, which opens this week.
The campaign has raised $280,000 as of last week — about half of which has come since the campaign entered its “public phase” on June 10.
“When you see the good work the MVAA has done for years in this community, this gift was a no-brainer,” Nourse said. “We are honored to be the first service organization in the Middlebury community to be able to support this cause.”
Since its charter night in 1952, the Middlebury Lions Club has donated more than $1.3 million to the community. It is a secular service organization and a member of Lions Club International, which has more than 1 million members worldwide.
At Monday’s banquet at Rosie’s, club member Tom Broughton, who has served on the board of Lions Club International, shared statistics about the organization. Since 1974, the club has sold an average of 4,254 hamburgers and cheeseburgers at its annual Field Days food booth. In 2009, the club grossed more than $47,000 through Field Days concessions. 
Nourse also presented Bob and Kathryn Anderson with the Lions of the Year award, and welcomed two new members, Julie Scribner and Steve Kellogg.
At the end of the ceremony, Nourse handed the club’s gavel over to Cory Newton, the organization’s next president.
Reporter George Altshuler is at [email protected].