November 7th

"Angel Mail" Update - November 7, 2009

Welcome to Our Newest Masonic Angel Funds
We are pleased to welcome the following new Masonic Angel Funds:


131	Carmel Masonic Angel Fund	Carmel	IN	11/13/2008
132	Greenwood Masonic Angel Fund	Greenwood	IN	11/06/2008
133	Excelsior Masonic Angel Fund	Franklin	MA	11/03/2008
134	H.L.Palmer Masonic Angel Fund	Wauwatosa	WI	03/02/2009
135	Mount Hollis Masonic Angel Fund	Holliston	MA	03/15/2009
136	John T Heard Masonic Angel Fund	Ipswich/Rowley	MA	04/01/2009
137	Haverhill Masonic Angel Fund	Haverhill	MA	09/17/2009
138	Weymouth Masonic Angel Fund	Weymouth	MA	09/20/2009
139	Wilbraham Masonic Angel Fund	Wilbraham	MA	10/20/2009

Since the Universal Masonic Angel Fund carries the designation of MAF #0, this places us at 140 Masonic Angel Funds in twelve states.

New Benevolence Builder Grant Series for Massachusetts Masonic Angel Fund Chapters

We are pleased to announce that a new series of Benevolence Builder Grants has been funded by The Lodge of St. Andrew.

This grant series will run from November 9, 2009 through January 31, 2010 and will conclude early if the allocated funds are expended.

Any Massachusetts Masonic Angel Fund in good standing may apply for a 50% replenishment of benevolences conferred during the grant period. Please note that each qualified Masonic Angel Fund may receive up to a cap of $1,000 for this series. This means that we can replenish 50% of your benevolences up to $2,000 during the life of this grant series.

To apply for a Benevolence Builder Grant simply email the particulars of each benevolence to info@masonicangelfund.org - DO NOT save up your benevolences to be submitted at one time - the money might very well be depleted before you submit your request. Please send your requests as soon as you confer the benevolences.

As always, we express our sincerest thanks to our Brethren in The Lodge of St. Andrew for their continued generosity to Massachusetts' Masonic Angel Funds.

Congratulations!

We offer our heartiest congratulations to the David Correa and the hard-working team at the Mount Washington Valley Area Masonic Angel Fund in North Conway, New Hampshire. This dedicated group of volunteers tested their wings as grant-writers over the past six month and have brought in a substantial number of corporate and private foundation grants to help fund their Masonic Angel Fund. Well done, Brethren.

Now please teach the rest of our chapters how to be as successful grant writers as you are.

Technology Grants Received

The Masonic Angel Foundation was deeply honored to receive an in-kind grant from Microsoft Corporation of over $10,000 worth of productivity, web design, operating system and server-side software.

We also received the donation of a $1,000 donor-tracking system from a publisher of non-profit administration software, approximately $300 in system utility software from Symantec and about $600 in software from Adobe Systems.

As you know, this Foundation is 100% volunteer-operated. Similarly, our technology is also provided either by corporate donors or by our own volunteers.

Benevolence Stories

In this issue we wanted to list some of the more unique benevolences that we saw in recent semi-annual reports. We all know that we emphasize clothing, eyeglasses, food...etc. Rather than listing dozens of clothing and eyeglass benevolences, this time we wanted to shine the spotlight on some non-traditional situations.

North Reading Lodge MAF - Twice provided the school nurse with funds with which to stock emergency snacks for kids with low blood sugar and funded the modest purchase of a learning device for a child with special needs.

John Warren MAF - Paid summer school tuition so that a child would not be forced to repeat a year for her family's inability to pay her $195 tuition. Think about that! They literally bought back a year of the child's life for $195.

St Matthew's Lodge MAF - Paid for school lunches for multiple children whose families missed the income cutoff for free-and-reduced lunch. They also funded after school program tuition for a child whose family was unable to pay the fee.

Mount Bigelow Masonic Angel Fund - Provided $75 after they were informed that a child needed continued support to develop self confidence, social skills and self esteem to allow her to be successful in school. The fee provided special instruction and development of a physical skill which the child was lacking at the time.

Limestone Masonic Angel Fund - Provided $200 in gas cards for "a high school senior girl needing medical treatments for a rare disease. She and her family had to travel 3.5 hours three times per week for treatments at a major medical center."

Mariner's Masonic Angel Fund - Paid one third of the cost of a campership for a six year old girl, daughter of a single parent who recently moved to the area. They also paid partial driver education fees for two boys who both needed their license to so they can get a job to help their single parent - Mariner's paid the "co-pay" portion that was not covered by the Department of Social Services. This MAF also paid for an SAT prep course for a sixteen-year-old boy in foster care and purchased hiking boots for a boy who was to participate in Outward Bound.

Pacific Lodge MAF - Paid $83.60 to rent a flute for a child whose father was being treated for cancer. Pacific also paid $350 to purchase specially fabricated contact lenses through Mass Eye & Ear for a five year old child with severe corneal disease - without these special lenses the child would be virtually blind. Finally, Pacific funded a $110 emergency treatment for a five year old at the UMass Speech & Hearing Disorders Center.

This is a random sampling of non-traditional benevolences from semi-annual reports that had been scanned but not yet put in their respective chapter's permanent file.

We all know that the vast majority of requests are for the "basics" described at the beginning of this section. Are we advocating that all of our Masonic Angel Funds go seek out the "unusual" benevolences? No. We provided these particular stories as examples of the kind of "outside the box" benevolences we can accept when the circumstances so require and finances so permit.

Yes, we do read your reports!