A number of charities in Staffordshire and the Black Country who have benefited from the generosity of local Freemasons have had their grants doubled thanks to a pilot scheme of the organisation’s national Grand Charity.
The grants of £5,000 became £10,000 when charity representatives were presented with their second cheques at Aldridge Masonic Hall.
Masonic lodges meeting in Handsworth, Lichfield, Stafford, Tamworth and Wolverhampton were among those who successfully applied for match funding and were able to give even more to Cancer Research, Headway, the County Air Ambulance, the Alzheimer’s Society, the MS Society, Wish Upon a Star and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
The reasons for supporting the various charities are as varied as the charities themselves and included lodge members suffering cancer, a son who suffered head injuries, a father suffering from Alzheimer’s, a member with advanced MS and as a memory of the wife of a member.
Every year Staffordshire’s 100 Masonic Lodges donate around £60,000 to charity and each member also makes a personal donation to the Grand Charity which has just announced a £1.5 million grants programme aimed at medical research, youth opportunities and vulnerable people.
Also £180,000 has been ring-fenced for air ambulances across England and Wales and includes a donation of £4,000 for Staffordshire’s new service.
Another £100,000 is going to the Heroes and their Families Emergency Appeal which has been launched by SSAFA.
The money will go towards providing suitable accommodation for families of seriously wounded servicemen and women at Headley Court and Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham during long rehabilitation periods.
Last December, the Provincial Grand Master of Staffordshire Freemasons presented cheques totalling more than £23,000 to local hospices on behalf of the Grand Charity which, since 1984, has donated more than £7 million to the hospices’ movement.
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