Getting up at the break of dawn. Working all day. Lifting and moving tons of frozen produce. Getting nothing in return.
It was a good time according to David Jones.
Jones, the Worshipful Master of the Carthage Masonic Lodge, and a number of other area Masons enjoyed their laborious weekend because it was all for a good cause.
Eleven Masonic Lodges converged in Granby, Mo. to split up 45,000 pounds of frozen corn and broccoli that was donated by an anonymous national vendor — food they knew their communities could put to good use.
Jones said the members of the lodges came with trailers to load, and set to work helping one another. The food was divvied up based on town size and need.
“Everybody was helping everybody else,” Jones said. “We helped this lodge. We helped them. They helped us. We all helped each other load individual trailers, trucks and things like that.”
The Carthage Masonic Lodge came away with just over 4,000 pounds of food.
The question was where should it all go? Brian Bisbee, director of the Carthage Crisis Center, had the answer. The Crisis Center is one of the largest food donation operations in Carthage.
Bisbee knew where the food was needed most.
When Jones and his fellow masons got back to town that day, they found a number of entities waiting. Bisbee had contacted a number of area food pantries with empty refrigerators who were ecstatic for a chance to replenish their stock.
Again the masons lent a helping hand and worked until the food was passed out to entities like Crosslines and various church food pantries that help the needy.
“It’s very, very heartwarming in terms of the effort of these guys,” Bisbee said. “These guys got up early and were off on the road at 7 a.m. in the morning to go down to Granby and pick this food up.”
It’s that type of generosity that allows the Crisis Center to continue to provide the services it does.
“We’re an organization that is supported completely by contributions,” Bisbee said. “There’s no government money involved in our organization. It’s efforts by people like this that are the very core of what keeps us alive and able to continue to help homeless and needy people.”
The need is as high as ever, Bisbee said. The 4,000 pounds donated on Saturday put the Crisis Center’s output at more than 100,000 pounds given so far in 2010. This is about the same as what was given out in all of 2009.
