A Donation for a Change: Fred M Gross Lodge Supports Fairview Youth Service Center
Gwen Akers
The Ashland Beacon
The Fairview Youth Service Center is the support system many do not recognize. They are the organization that provides backpacks for students, the last line of defense when an accident leaves a student needing new pants–and with the fabulous $2500 donation recently given to them by the Fred M. Gross Masonic Lodge, they can continue to aid and support their students.
“It just meant a lot to us at school that they did that for our kids in our community. You know, you can't explain to somebody how much it means when people go out of their way to help so many kids, and they have no clue how many kids it's going to impact,” commented Ashley Carey, the Family Resource Center Coordinator for the elementary, middle and high school.
The Fairview Youth Service Center is involved in many different outreach and support activities, including weekend snack bags sent home with children, backpacks for back to school, an extensive clothing closet (featuring 107 clothing items just at the elementary school), and provision of other toiletries and hygiene items that students may need. Throughout the school year, they have helped 114 children with school supplies on top of the 85 children who were sponsored by the backpack program. This donation means that they can continue to aid their students and supply them with the tools for success.
“It's able to provide our students with clothing, so that families do not have to leave work to come to school to bring clothes. The weekend snacks—we all know that groceries have gotten really expensive. Everything has gone up. Just to help with a little bit of that burden on Fridays when we send home these weekend snacks. It gives something extra for the kids to have, to keep them until they get back in school on Monday,” commented Carey.
The Fred M Gross Masonic Lodge was founded with the purpose of aiding the community as best as it could through charitable acts. For this specific donation, the lodge raffled off a gun and gave all the proceeds minus the cost of the gun to the Fairview Youth Service Center. Ethan Wells is the junior warden of the Masonic Order, or the third principal officer.
“We'll continue to support our youth service center and all the kids of all ages in the Fairview School District,” explained Wells. “We’re hoping anything we can do, any money we can raise, anything we can do to help any displaced kids or families [can help]. We want to continue to do that in any way we can.”
With this donation, the Fairview Youth Service Center can keep impacting the lives of the students in the school district and keep being that support system that many do not recognize. With everything they do, they hope to set their students up for success.
“Like I said, we were very, very thankful that they did this. When you hear ‘we're going to give you a donation,’ you're thinking $100, $200, and then you get this check for $2,500, and find out that everything they profited went to us. I mean, it's amazing! I can say all day how many kids this is going to help. When you're actually in the school you realize, without our community partners, we couldn't help all the kids that we help,” explained Carey.
The Fairview Youth Service Center could not be more grateful to the Fred M Gross Masonic Lodge, and neither could the numerous students who will benefit from this donation.
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