Cape & Islands News

Masonic Angel Fund helps Cape, Islands children

Contributions help meet needs of children of working poor
Idea launched by Orleans Masons spreads across United States

By James Kinsella

Masonic Angel Fund was founded 10 years ago over a dinner table by two members of the Orleans Universal Lodge, Bob Fellows and John Sherman.

On Thursday afternoon, more than 100 Cape Cod families will be sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner that almost wasn't there.

Last week, Mal Hughes, who directs Head Start of Cape Cod, was surprised to learn that the Boston Food Bank, on which the program had been counting, could provide only part of the Thanksgiving dinner for the program's needy families.

The food bank could supply the turkeys and some of the fixings, she was told, but no additional food.

In a pinch, Hughes turned to an organization that has quietly helped the children in her Head Start program time and again: the Masonic Angel Fund.

In two days, she had a check that enabled the program, with the help of BJ's in Hyannis, to buy the rest of the Thanksgiving dinner - the potatoes, the fresh vegetables, the cranberry sauce and the dessert - for many of the 109 participating families on the Cape. Another source met the remaining need.

The quick turnaround time, the lack of formality, and the focus on the needs of local children all are hallmarks of the fund, founded 10 years ago over a dinner table at the Hearth 'n' Kettle in Orleans by two members of the Orleans Universal Lodge, Bob Fellows and John Sherman.

A decade later, 132 Masonic lodges across the Cape, the Islands and the United States are participating in the charitable program.

Program meets meets children's otherwise unmet needs

Fellows, an Eastham resident who's the foundation's secretary and managing director, said the participating lodges (which include all Masonic lodges on the Cape and Islands), said the program is structured so that 100 percent of the donations that come in go out to children in the communities where those lodges are located.

Angel Fund participants seek to fill the needs of children that otherwise would go unmet.

"They're falling through the cracks in the system, and we're there to catch them." 
                          - Bob Fellows

Fellows said those needs are especially prevalent among the families of the working poor: those who don't receive the government help available to those with lower incomes. Communities like the Cape lend themselves to what the participating lodges can provide.

"They're falling through the cracks in the system, and we're there to catch them," Fellows said.

The Masonic Angels meet needs that are modest but unmet.

They buy shoes. They buy coats. They buy eyeglasses. They buy books. They buy things that children need and that their families can't afford.

They don't want to know for whom they're buying those things. And they don't want the children to know who bought those things for them.

Angel Fund works behind the scenes

The Angels, who do not accept direct requests for help, work through the schools or recognized social service agencies to identify needs of particular children and meet them.

That desire goes back to how the fund came to be founded.

Sherman and Fellows were having dinner and talking about the lodge's recent participation in another Masonic charitable activity, the videotaping of children to help people find them if they went missing.

Sherman, who had worked on the videotaping, was angry about some of what he had seen: children who obviously needed eyeglasses or who were wearing worn or ill-fitting clothes, whose families couldn't afford anything more.

More poverty exists on the Cape and Islands and across Massachusetts than some might realize.

So he and Fellows launched the fund, with its emphasis on meeting the unmet needs of these children.

Another priority is moving quickly. "We have to respond within 24 hours," Fellows said.

More poverty exists on the Cape and Islands and across Massachusetts than some might realize.

According to information compiled on the fund's Web site, local students living in poverty include 912 children in Barnstable, or 20.5 percent of the district; 1,098 in Dennis-Yarmouth, or 30.6 percent of the district; and 61 students in Provincetown, or 31.3 percent of the district.

Lorrimer Armstrong Jr. has been the fund's treasurer from the beginning. Mario Mere, a member of the Mount Horeb lodge in Dennis, the second lodge to join the Angel effort, handles Web design and program compliance of participating lodges across the nation. Sherman, who since has moved to California, is president.

Hughes, at Head Start, said the Masonic Angel Fund stands apart in the trust that fund participants place in their social-service partners. If she said she needs a certain amount of money to meet a particular student's need, she said the fund provides the money without question.

"They really trust the relationship we've built," Hughes said.

One of the few strings: the fund wants to know the community in which the child lives, so as to tie the contribution to the lodge that represents that community.

That's why Fellows knows how many children whose families will partake of the Thanksgiving food donation live in which communities: six families in Centerville, two in Cotuit, 10 in Marstons Mills, and so on. The Mariners Lodge in Cotuit is funding those donations.

Basic needs grow as economy slows down

Earlier in the decade, when the economy was better, Head Start steered Angel Fund contributions to things such as dance or karate classes for certain students, to build self control or self esteem in children who lacked either.

More recently, though, with the downturn in the economy, Hughes has been steering donations toward more basic needs.

Fellows also has seen how the slowdown in the economy has affected the requests seen by the fund.

"A lot of groups are very concerned," he said. In these late November days, the fund is receiving the sort of requests it more typically didn't see until mid-December.

The Masonic Angel Fund is a 501c3 organization. Fellows said the fund's operational costs — which he calls "laughably low" — are supported by member dues, annual fees from fund chapters at the lodges, and a few members who contribute specifically for operations, allowing a complete pass-through of donated funds to needy children.

Donations to the fund are eligible for tax deductions. Contributions can be sent to the Masonic Angel Fund, P.O. Box 1389, Orleans, MA 02653.