# Does your Lodge adopt families for the holidays?



## crono782 (Nov 5, 2014)

Does your Lodge adopt a family or families during the holiday season, either for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or both? Or even for other holidays or just other times of the year.

Reply back with how do you come across names generally, how is it received, what you do for them (meal, presents, assistance, etc).
In this case I really love being able to exercise charity and help contribute to a family that has come upon hard times and really make their holiday something special for them. Share your experiences!

***
I'll get the ball rolling. In the past, we have "adopted" at least two families during both Thanksgiving and Christmas. The names usually come to us via other organizations or word of mouth. We typically put together a great meal and during Christmas, also drum up presents for kids and something for the parents like practical gift cards, etc. Names have been a little hard to come by the past year though, not sure why.


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## crono782 (Nov 21, 2014)

Bump.


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## KSigMason (Nov 22, 2014)

One of the Lodges I'm a member of does adopt a family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.


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## Warrior1256 (Dec 19, 2014)

My lodge does other things for the needy but not this.


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## Bill Lins (Dec 19, 2014)

We, along with another area Lodge and a police motorcycle club, hold a toy run to raise money with which to buy Christmas presents for the children of the clients of our local battered women's shelter. This year we provided $70 worth of presents per kid for 73 kids (dunno how many families were "adopted"). We've been doing this for 13 years now. The shelter gives us a sheet for each kid with a code # instead of a name, listing their age & gender, and their "wish list". We get bicycles from Academy Sports and other presents from Wal-Mart. (Both give us a discount). When we're done shopping, we wrap the presents and take them to the shelter to be given to the kids.


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## dmurawsky (Dec 22, 2014)

We work with a local outreach group called Mercer Street Friends. We request a certain number of children that we think we can sponsor and they give us the names and christmas lists. We then reach out to the brothers and get the gifts purchased, wrapped, and loaded in to the lodge. We then have a Breakfast with Santa, where Santa sits in the east giving out presents and having pictures taken while the kitchen cooks up a breakfast feast (suggested donation). It's a great event. 

This year, though, we weren't able to get the sponsored kids out to the lodge for some reason, I think there was a miscommunication with the outside org. Note to anyone doing an event like this: Make sure expectations are set and communicated all around!


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## jermy Bell (Mar 9, 2017)

My lodge gives $500 every year to a so called agency, which is also funded by the state,  so no idea where the money goes.


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## E. D. Law PM (Mar 10, 2017)

My mother Lodge---Kingston #287 Switched this year form a Christmas program giving 18 families kids toys.  We found about 80% of the families were double and triple dipping--going to several churches , to the Shrine and  other outlets to receive gifts then selling them or trading them for dope and alcohol. This year we found a family with 7 children o their own and have custody of 5 kids from a family member. We found them thru DHS. we helped three other  One parent families, two form churches and one thru our local school.  We spread 2400.00 dollars with the number of children dictating how much they received. We gave all of them Wal-Mart gift cards. My other lodge get the names of two families from their local school. They split $ 1,000 between the two.


Kingston#287 Kingston Ok PM
Creekmore #74 Madill Ok
Scotish Rite Valley of McAlester
York Rite and Knights Commandery # 9 Ardmore Ok
Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of OK.


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