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Our Children Need Your Help; $200K in Scholarships to Be Given.
Our Louisiana Children Need Your Help
Because of you, young lives are being changed.
Advertisement from a 1972 issue of The Louisiana Freemason for the scholarship program.
For the past several years, as many of you know, the Grand Lodge facilitated the annual Grand Master’s Appeal. The purpose of this appeal has been to raise money to support the donor’s Masonic Charity of choice, with commemorative medallions, or some other token, being gifted back to the donor in thanks. While some years were great, other years were not. Last year the program cost nearly as much as it raised. This year, our Grand Master wanted to try something different. This year the appeal for charity is not the Grand Master’s, but rather that of the children whom our Masonic Children’s Charities serve. No letters are being stuffed and mailed to the 12,000+ Masons in the State of Louisiana, not a dime from our charities is going towards postage and printing. That alone saves over $12,000 that will now go directly to helping the youth who are depending on us. If the Grand Lodge is not mailing out solicitations, then how is money being raised? Brothers are going to people they know and businesses they support and asking them to give in support of the children. As of this date, $65,000 has been raised by brethren and lodges in their communities, and given to support either our Dyslexia program or our Masonic Scholarships. We have just begun and the momentum is building. You see, my brother, there are two ways that our charities serve children’s educational needs. The first, and most known, is the Dyslexia Training Program(s), under the Masonic Learning Center of Louisiana. The second, that is less known but quite prolific in its mission, is the Masonic Scholarship Program, which gives much needed financial aid to college students across Louisiana. These students benefit directly from your support and the money you raise for these two worthy causes.
Prior to 1998, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana’s major philanthropy was the Masonic Children’s Home in Alexandria, LA; however, due to changes in federal regulation, the Grand Lodge was forced to close the facility in 1994. Since then, Louisiana Masons have taken on the task of helping children with Dyslexia as our major philanthropy. The Masonic Scholarship Program emerged directly from the home. During the decades of operation, school-aged children in the home were not only provided with the needs they needed during their formative education, but were also provided scholarships to attend college after graduating from high school. These scholarships were supported by the brethren, and they still are. Since 2010 alone, approximately three-quarters of a million dollars in scholarship funds have been awarded to worthy Louisiana college students. By the end of this school year, up to $200,000 more will be awarded.
The Dyslexia Training Program was established under the Masonic Learning Center of Louisiana and works on a cooperative basis with the local Masonic Lodges and communities. There are currently class sites in seven Masonic Districts across Louisiana. Since 1998, it has been The Masonic Learning Center of Louisiana’s mission is to serve our state and local communities in guiding and addressing the dyslexia in classrooms by providing community learning centers for all children with dyslexia, regardless of parental income or location, and by furnishing special instruction to children with dyslexia who are not otherwise receiving adequate services, or who need extra help to permit them to cope successfully with their condition, giving each child the ability to further their potential for success. Students in the Dyslexia Training Program are also scholarship funded, with a cost of $2,000 per student, per year. This program has twenty-four classrooms across the state that not only serve the needs of students burdened with the additional challenge of dyslexia, it employs twenty-four certified educators.
It’s easy enough to know what it means to give out scholarships to college students, but what is a Dyslexia Training Program exactly? Well, the Dyslexia Training Program is a multi-sensory program of instruction that emphasizes phonics and is taught by a teacher/facilitator to classes of limited size using a number of teaching aids including video recordings, workbooks, writing frames, linkage paper, three- dimensional letters, flash cards, wall charts, dictionaries, and other items. The primary program consists of 350 hours of classroom time which is conducted one [1] hour per day, five [5] days per week, excluding holidays. In order that the students may all be age- appropriate and comply with the elements of the disorder, we accept only those children who are in grades 4, 5, or 6; who have not yet attained the age of 13; who are free of other impeding conditions; and who have a full-scale I.Q. of at least 90 as determined by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 3rd Edition. There is also a 160-hour program for youth older than the age of 13. This one-year program provides instruction for students in the 7th grade through 11th grade. Each class is conducted by a teacher/facilitator who is certified to teach in Louisiana. The location of each class is hosted in various physical facilities, including: Masonic Lodge buildings, churches, schools, or other specified entities.
When the Grand Master says that our children need your help, he means that these programs can only sustain themselves by Masons taking the step and coming together to engage their own communities, not just their own pockets, if stretching out the hand of charity and giving aid and assistance to the children of Louisiana, and the future of our state. If you would like to be part of this laudable effort, ask some one what educating our students means to them. Some people have the means to give, they just don’t know where to give it. Maybe they just need you to ask. If you find someone who wants to write a check for however much they can, they can make it payable to Grand Lodge Children’s Charities, and you or they can mail it to the Grand Lodge at 5746 Masonic Drive, in Alexandria, Louisiana, 71301. All donors will be recognized in official Grand Lodge publications, just like the one you’re reading right now.
