Masons Kick Off Digby Health Services Fundraising Campaign With $17,000 Donation
Jonathan Riley – jriley@digbycourier.ca
Published on April 18, 2015
DIGBY – The Masonic Foundation of Nova Scotia has donated $17,000 to the Digby and Area Charitable Health Services Foundation.
Larry Black, past Master of King Solomon Lodge in Digby, sent in the application to the provincial Masonic fund.
“This is a great community project and something we actually need in this area of the province,” said Black. “To keep this medical centre going is going to be the key to keeping and attracting doctors and we were happy to fill out the paperwork to make this happen.”
A dozen Masons visited the Digby General Hospital on April 17 to officially present the donation to members of the foundation and their president Neil Nichols.
The Digby and Area Charitable Health Services Foundation is hoping to raise $250,000 to replenish its bank account after spending $1.7 million on the new Digby and Area Health Services Centre.
Among the visitors were Peter Ponsford, the deputy Grand Master of the Masons of Nova Scotia, John Dollimount, the chair of the Masonic Foundation of Nova Scotia, Ronald Baker, the district Deputy Grand Master for the Annapolis-Digby district, H.W. Hilden, the district director of ceremonies, and Richard Parry, the Master of the King Solomon Lodge #54 in Digby.
Dollimount said the Masonic Foundation of Nova Scotia distributed $330,000 through four different programs last year.
They distributed about $30,000 through their benevolence fund to distressed Masons and their families, they handed out almost $100,000 in scholarships and bursaries and they spent $126,000 through their shared funding program which matches every dollar donated by an individual lodge with $3 from the foundation.
And, they distributed $86,000 through their special projects fund – which is where the money came from for the donation to the Digby health foundation.
Black says to qualify for funding, special projects have to contribute to the greater good of the wider community.
“The Digby Hospital And Health Services Centre serve people not just in Digby but in the valley and down the shore,” he said. “This is something that will help everyone in this area.”
Parry says he was happy to see this donation from the provincial fund and the King Solomon Lodge will continue to support health care in Digby.
“It will be up to the brothers just how we do that, but we’re are going to investigate ways we can support the hospital and the health services foundation,” he said.