The Elks Lodge #129 in Washington Court House recently donated to several area organizations and efforts after receiving a special grant.
After applying for a grant from the National Elks Foundation, the local Elks chapter was fortunate enough to receive a sum of money to distribute. Three organizations benefited from $2,000 that was awarded to the local chapter’s trustees. Fayette Progressive’s Special Olympics program, Omega Church City of Healing’s Backpack program and the Elks Lodge dictionary program received some of those funds.
“The teams will make great use of these funds to help further our program,” Tim Stewart, special Olympics coordinator with Fayette Progressive, said. “We are thankful of the Elks for donating this money. All of these funds help us to take the teams to tournaments, buy jerseys and pay fees for the players. We do not charge the players anything to play and we rely on donations like these to bring these sports to the players.”
Stewart said participating in these sports teaches the athletes valuable life skills and also how to work together on a team. For more information, please contact Stewart at 740-335-7453.
“The former Gregg Street Church, now the Omega Church City of Healing, has been holding a backpack program for many years which has slowly transitioned but is still fundamentally the same,” Patricia Gardner, pastor at Omega Church, said. “Our program helps to fill in the gaps for some of those kids who are less fortunate and perhaps cannot afford a meal. The program provides breakfasts and lunches to those kids on the weekends when school is not in session.”
According to Gardner and other pastors at the church, the program is unique in that it helps to provide ready-to-eat meals to children when they might only eat while at school during the year. After hearing from the local school counselors on specific children who could benefit from the program, the church provides a meal for Saturday and Sunday to help supplement the meals the child receives at school. For some of the kids in the program, these meals could be the only food they eat all weekend.
“The past presidents of the Washington C.H. Elks Lodge #129 will use this donation to help distribute dictionaries, which is something we do every year, to local third graders,” Ed Helt, one past president of the Elks, said. “Students at Washington City Schools, Miami Trace Local Schools and the Fayette Christian School benefit from this program.”
For more information about the Elks, call the lodge at (740) 335-2490.
