Since my first blog post in October, a lot has happened—and I suspect the same is true for you. While we are more than halfway through our Lodge year, us CIP volunteers and Lodge Grant Coordinators have a lot more time to go! We’re not even halfway since the CIP year goes all the way to July 31!
A few days before hearing that our Fresno Elks Lodge Mt. Olympus Challenge $10,000 Impact Grant was funded, 25 Elks volunteers put on our annual Drug Awareness Day project, thanks to a $2,500 Promise Grant. Eighty-six 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders from a rural school primarily serving children of farmworkers were our guests. They took a drug awareness quiz, saw a canine demonstration from a local police department and participated in activity booths. It was loads of fun for us and for our guests!
While the Freedom Grant for veterans, the Promise Grant for youth and Impact Grants for large-scale service projects have already been awarded, don’t despair. There are still two grants to go! They are the $2,000 Beacon Grant for ongoing charitable activities and the $2,000 to $2,500 Gratitude Grant to help meet local needs.
This blog post, we’re talking about the Beacon Grant which is used annually for a continuing project. In our Lodge, we have a St. Patrick’s Day Sunday event for recently returning veterans and needy veterans in our community. Veterans and their families enjoy a meal of corned beef and cabbage and sing-alongs and dancing.
When applying for the grant, ENF asked us to consider events at non-traditional times and St. Patrick’s Day is such a time! Our event stands out as the only one in the community. If we had our luncheon on Veterans Day, 4th of July or Christmas, there would be a lot other organizations doing so also, leaving our guests to choose amongst events and being ignored the rest of the year.
Find out about other Beacon Grant projects taking place by Lodges across the country on the ENF website and plan yours now. You have a few more months to apply and your event can take place between now and July 31.
This is a 2-way blog, meaning I welcome your comments, your questions, your ideas, etc. You can best reach me by email…put “ENF Blog” in the subject line of the email, add your comments or questions in the body, sign your name and Lodge name and number and email it to me at susang1953@hotmail.com.
This is all for now...till next time, happy CIP’ing!
-Susan