Pandemic doesn’t stop Elks Lodge from making donations
Trending
Submitted photo
The Elkins Elks Lodge 1135 recently donated $500 to the Randolph County Children's Home to help with a Christmas party for the residents. The lodge raised the money through direct donations from lodge members. The Elks Club's Jeff Pritt, left, and Derrick Pritt present a check to West Virginia Children's Home Director CheDella Ware.
ELKINS -- The Elkins Elks Lodge 1135 refused to allow COVID-19 to keep the organization from successfully making its annual holiday donations to the local community.
Each year during Christmas the Elks Club hosts two separate events for area youths. The lodge traditionally presents an annual Santa Claus night for less fortunate children at the Woodford Methodist Church, and also offers a pizza party/bowling night for the kids of the West Virginia Children's Home at the Elkins Recreation Center.
With COVID-19 putting restrictions on how things could be done, the organization altered its typical plans to make sure both the events were still a success. Instead of having the Santa Claus night indoors this year, it was moved to a drive-thru event where families could pull up and pick up their gifts. And not to worry, Santa still made an appearance and greeted the kids as they pulled up in their cars.
The Elks used $2,200 worth of donations to fund the Santa event. Each child received a bag of fruit, wrapped candy and a $25 gift card to Walmart.
"We call up the local elementary schools and they compile a list of kids for the Santa night," said Elkins Elks Club secretary Jerry Pingley. "We then distribute 70 pass tickets to those children who will bring them to the event to get their food and gifts."
Because the Elks were unable to entertain the pizza/bowling party, they decided to donate $500 to the Children's Home to allow the children there to have a party of their own.
"Every year we would take the kids from the Children's Home on a bowling outing and have a pizza party for them while we were there," said Pingley. "But with the way everything is going on with the pandemic, we couldn't do it, so we decided to give them money for their own party at the Children's Home."
Pingley said the money raised for both events came directly from Elks Club members.
"We sent a letter out to our lodge members in November asking for donations for both events," Pingley said. "They did a great job of coming through for the kids and collecting a total of $2,800 to fund those two things."
Lodge members have two more fundraisers planned for after the first of the year, with the first being the purchasing of bulk paper and hand sanitizer for area schools. The lodge will also be donating $1,000 to Tygarts Valley High School for locker room renovations.