Masonic Lodge presents check to soup kitchen

By DAVID J. HARDIN

Cove Leader-Press 

Mt. Hiram Masonic Lodge #595 held a check presentation ceremony Wednesday night, donating $325 to the Copperas Cove Soup Kitchen.

On hand to accept the check was soup kitchen director Patrick Richardson. 

The money was raised from an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner held at the lodge in April.

This was the first fundraiser that was held by the Mt. Hiram Lodge to help support the soup kitchen, according to Mt. Hiram Lodge fundraising committee chair Jim Johnsen. 

“Fundraising, for me, is that I have a passion to try and help the organization of which I am a part of to keep going,” Johnsen said. “e are a non-profit organization that relies on the donations of our fundraisers to keep going from year to year.”

“When we do a fundraiser like the one that we held for the soup kitchen, it lets the community know that we are here to help them in a time of need, or just reaching out and giving help to our community. The Grandmaster in Waco said that every lodge had to do some form of community service by May of this year. We had a spaghetti dinner scheduled, so we just decided to do this as a fundraiser, and as a committee we chose give the money to the soup kitchen.”

Patrick Richardson has been the Copperas Cove’s Soup Kitchen Director since 2012. 

“It is a tremendous help. One, it does help the community, but on the other hand it helps me, because not only are they helping me monetary wise, but they are helping me by letting me know that somebody else out there cares, just as much as I do.” 

Richardson said the money goes a long way to help pay the rent, electric, water, and gas, but it also goes right back to the community. Richardson said he’s very grateful to the Mt. Hiram Masonic Lodge.

“Things are going very well at the soup kitchen, but I would like to try and change the location due to the fact that the current building is too small for all of its services, which is more than just a place to feed people. It is also a clothes closest, and a food pantry,” Richardson said.