Masonic Charity in the Community

Vocabulary (7)

Relief

The second of the three published tenets of the Craft: Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. The published lectures define Relief as the active duty of soothing the unhappy, sympathizing with their misfortunes, and restoring peace to their troubled minds, by deed where the Mason can, and by word where he cannot.

Masonic Service Association

MSANA, the published service body of the American Grand Lodges, founded in 1918. It coordinates Masonic disaster relief, publishes the Short Talk Bulletin, and runs the Hospital Visitation Program that places Masonic volunteers in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.

Hospital Visitation Program

MSANA's longest-running published charitable activity: Masonic volunteers visiting veterans in VA hospitals, delivering small comforts and the time of a friendly visitor. The program has operated continuously since 1952.

Shriners Hospitals

Twenty-two published children's hospitals operated by Shriners International, an appendant body whose membership is open to Master Masons. The hospitals treat orthopedic conditions, burns, cleft lip and palate, and spinal cord injuries, traditionally without billing the family.

Shrine Transportation Fund

The published fund that pays to transport a child and a parent to a Shriners Hospital for Children for treatment. The hospitals don't bill for care; the Transportation Fund covers the trip itself. Local Shrine Temples and clubs raise for it through their own activities, and the fund moves the money to families who otherwise couldn't get the child to the hospital door. The hospital network isn't useful without it.

Scottish Rite charities

Published philanthropies of the Scottish Rite, Southern and Northern Masonic Jurisdictions. The published flagship programs are RiteCare childhood-language clinics and graduate scholarships in research and the humanities.

Grand Lodge charity

Each Grand Lodge keeps its own published charitable arm. In New Mexico the Grand Lodge funds scholarships, child-identification (CHIP) programs, and emergency relief for Masons and their dependents in the state. Separately, the Masonic Charities Foundation of New Mexico (MCFNM) works through the Lodges in their local communities and stands ready for statewide circumstances such as natural disasters. The appendant-body charities (KTEF, RARA, CMMRF, the Shriners' work, the Scottish Rite's work) are separate organizations that raise and direct their own funds.

Multiple-choice (7)