"Angel Mail" Update - June 23rd, 2006
Welcome to Our Newest Masonic Angel Funds
We are pleased to report the following new Masonic Angel Funds:
109 Charles A. Welch Lodge Maynard MA 04/14/2006
110 Corinthian Lodge Concord MA 05/08/2006
111 Limestone Lodge #214 Limestone ME 05/09/2006
Since the Universal Lodge Masonic Angel Fund carries the designation of MAF #0, this places us at 112 Masonic Angel Funds in twelve states.
New - MAF "Bulletin Board" Forums
Our webmaster has arranged a "bulletin board" (BBS) forum section for our web site. Please visit our bulletin board and share your experiences and questions about your Masonic Angel Fund.
If your lodge does not have a Masonic Angel Fund join this BBS to get the necessary information to set up this most important Masonic charity in your community.
Visit the BBS, register, sign in and participate in the forums.
Spring Benevolence Builder Grant Series Concludes
The spring Benevolence Builder grant series concluded on June 22nd when the last of the series' funds were expended. $10,000 was distributed as 50% replenishments for benevolences conferred by Massachusetts Masonic Angel Funds - that means $20,000 actually "hit the ground" in this series.
We thank The Lodge of St. Andrew for their continued generosity in making the BBG program possible.
Summer Outreach
We are well into summer campership season. Back to school time is not that far away, either. Please be sure to touch base with your schools a couple of times during the summer. If your usual contact person is on vacation, perhaps the best person to see is the school secretary. Let everyone know that your MAF is available to help with back-to-school needs such as clothing and school supplies.
Benevolence Stories
Below we have shared a very few benevolence stories. We receive so many bulletins from our affiliated MAF's that it is often difficult to choose which stories to include in a bulletin. Below is a representative sample:
Simon W. Robinson Lodge
Lexington, Massachusetts' Simon W. Robinson Lodge MAF provided camperships for two children in the local school system.
John Cutler Lodge
Two "virtually homeless" girls, ages seven and ten, received funding to provide them with appropriate clothing thanks to the John Cutler Lodge MAF. Other benevolences included a bicycle helmet for a ten-year-old boy, athletic equipment items necessary for a ten-year-old boy to participate in Little League and summer program tuition for a ten-year-old girl who recently suffered the death of a close family member.
Pacific Lodge
Amherst, MA is served by the new Pacific Lodge Masonic Angel Fund. Rather than writing anything ourselves, we will let PLMAF chairman John Matthews' word speak for themselves:
Amherst Pacific Lodge finishes a hearty gift-giving, school year by providing summer camp memberships to needy children in the Amherst regional school district. Our donation of $1,850 will send 10 elementary school-age children in grades K - 6 to a local Adventure Playground camp. This year we also purchased 40 bicycle helmets and sent 17 needy kids on a field trip with the rest of their class, and purchased medicines for a needy child with degenerative eye disease. A great first year.
Level Lodge
The Level Lodge Masonic Angel Fund serves children at the Flagg Street School in Worcester. Recent benevolences include a campership for a ten-year-old girl, spring jackets for a six-year-old girl and an eleven-year-old girl (at $15 each!), tuition for two boys (eight and nine) to attend the UMass Reading Skills Program at Clark University and summer reading/math tutoring for three students,
Needham Masonic Angel Fund
Nehoiden Lodge's Needham Masonic Angel Fund had a very busy spring. Benevolences included funds to purchase appropriate clothing for a nine-year-old girl, a campership for a ten-year-old boy in the special education program, campership for a thirteen-year-old girl whose father is suffering from a catastrophic illness, funding for a eye therapy for a ten-year-old girl, bedding for a nine-year-old girl whose home suffered a fire, summer tutoring for an eight-year-old girl, tuition to permit several elementary school children to attend a necessary summer reading program, summer remedial reading program for a six-year-old boy,
Meridian Lodge
This year Meridian Lodge stepped up to the plate to provide camperships for TWENTY children in Natick, MA. Below is a picture of Meridian Lodge MAF Trustee Richard Ames (second from left) and Masonic Angel Foundation member Albert Ames (far left), presenting the campership check. (We were not provided with the names for the others in the picture.)
Universal Lodge
The lives of a number of children in the Nauset Regional Schools were made a little brighter this spring thanks to the work of Universal Lodge MAF. Benevolences included afterschool tuition for more kids than we can count, tuition for a girl to participate in ballet lessons at the Academy of Performing Arts, eyeglasses for a little girl at Orleans Elementary School and food for two children in a very dire situation.
St. Alban's Lodge
Foxboro, Massachusetts is home to St. Alban's Lodge Masonic Angel Fund. This spring the St. Alban's MAF provided funds so that a high school student could attend his band trip, camperships to YMCA day camp, camperships to Southeastern Mass. Arts Collaborative (the third year they have helped kids attend this terrific program) and partial funding for a high school girl to attend cheerleading camp.
Boston First Fund
The Boston First Fund continues to make a difference the lives of children who often find themselves in the most dreadful of situations. Spring benevolences included: funds to purchase clothing for an eight-year-old girl who had to leave home due to a domestic violence situation, ten weeks of summer day camp for a thirteen-year-old boy in DYS supervision (at the bargain price of $250 for the whole summer), campership for a five-year-old boy who lives in a homeless shelter, clothing and baby items for a four-year-old girl and her one-year-old sister, coat and sneakers for a sixteen-year-old Roxbury girl who is in foster care,
St. John's Lodge
St. John's Lodge MAF of Newburyport, MA provided many children with camperships for the summer season.
One of our newer Masonic Angel Funds is in Noblesville, Indiana. MAF #97 was established by Noblesville Lodge #57 on June 7, 2005. Recently, the MAF trustees at Noblesville forwarded an email to us from one of the teachers whose student they helped. We present it below.
King Hiram's Lodge (Provincetown, MA)
We have received many updates from King Hiram's Lodge treasurer and MAF trustee Hersey Taylor. These letters tell the story of a Masonic Angel Fund that helps out time and again with basics such as clothing, food, medicine and other necessary items. This consistent record of good works comes as no surprise from a Lodge whose history includes charitable highlights such as providing breakfast for every school-age child in town during the Great Depression.
When one reads through these benevolences there is no doubt in one's mind that MAF is literally changing the lives of many of the kids we serve. So often we "greet" a child at a fork in the road and provide the means for him to take the more hopeful of the two roads before him.
Zip Code Directory
Several people in the MAF community have asked for an easier way to find out if a particular community is covered by an extant Masonic Angel Fund. Our current directory of Masonic Angel Funds lists the city where the sponsoring Lodge is located. However, there are many of our constituent MAF's that serve children in several towns.
In order to come up with a "zip code search engine", our webmaster needs a list of all zip codes that are served by each Masonic Angel Fund. Please save us some postage by emailing your MAF name and the zip codes/city names it serves to webmaster@masonicangelfund.org - information should be submitted as it is in the following example:
Universal Lodge Masonic Angel Fund
02653, Orleans
02643, East Orleans
02662, South Orleans
02631, Brewster
02642, Eastham
02651, North Eastham
Thank you for providing our webmaster with the information necessary to fuel this new search engine.
Share Your News!
Do you have benevolence stories you would like to share with the rest of the MAF on-line community? If so, please email them to angelfund@listserver.blackwidowweb.net and we will pass them along to your colleagues.
Regards to all,
Bob Fellows, Co-Founder/Board Secretary
Masonic Angel Foundation, Inc.
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