South Lake Tahoe Moose Lodge provides food for 40 families

For the past four years, members of the South Lake Tahoe Moose Lodge have been providing meals for the less fortunate members of the community. What began as a small project with members filling up 15 boxes of food has grown into a much larger project with 40 families receiving the meals this weekend.

Administrative staff at Tahoe Valley Elementary school selected the 40 recipients and students from the school decorated the food boxes with colorful, seasonal messages.

Even though the Moose are an international organization, this program is strictly a local project and defines the group's goal of helping the community. On Friday, December 19, Lodge members filled the boxes with food, along with some other needed items. The items are geared to provide a full Christmas Dinner plus additional food items help the families through the holidays. Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Resort donated forty hams, giving the Lodge a big boost to kick off the drive. Lodge members, businesses, and the public have stepped forward with donations that have allowed the purchase of the rest of needed items to round out the dinner boxes.

On Saturday and Sunday, December 20 and 21, the families will be going to the Lodge to pick up their boxes. For those families with no transportation, Lodge members deliver the boxes to the family’s homes.

The students at Tahoe Valley Elementary School have also supported the Lodge’s Annual Longest Day of Golf for the past eight years, raising hundreds of dollars in support of the South Lake Tahoe Cancer League. Now the Lodge wants to give back.

The Moose serve a modest goal of offering men and women an opportunity to gather socially, to care for the needs of the community and to celebrate life together. Our fraternal organization includes valuable services to our the youth and elderly in our communities, including care for children and teens in need at Mooseheart Child City & School, a 1,000-acre campus, located 40 miles west of Chicago and care for our senior members at Moosehaven, a 70-acre retirement community near Jacksonville, Florida. With a combined membership of over 1,000,000 members, our presence is felt in over 1,500 communities across all 50 states and four Canadian provinces, plus Great Britain and Bermuda. The Moose organization contributes between $75 to $100 million worth of community service (counting monetary donations, volunteer hours worked and miles driven) annually.

If you would like to learn more about Loyal Order of Moose Lodge #1632" or our Women's branch "Women of the Moose Chapter #408", please contact our Administrator, Dr. Barry Keil (b.keil@att.net) or call (530) 541-1632 between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.