Back-to-school giveaway

Shawn Hart, Melinda Brown and Labasha C. 

BY RAVEN JOY SHONEL, Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG – Fleur De Lis #155 held their annual community back-to-school event at the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Central Avenue Saturday, July 22.

Backpacks and totes filled with supplies tailored to the specific needs of each age group were handed out to those in attendance. More than 100 children were blessed with lined paper, notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, glue, crayons, markers, color pencils and more.

Fleur De Lis #155 is one of many chapters of the International Free & Accepted Modern Masons, Incorporation and Order of the Eastern Star. The organization is based on Christian principals and charity is this chapter’s main goal.

Throughout the year, these ladies hold fundraiser and garner sponsorships to help bless needy families at Thanksgiving and help children start the school year out right with new supplies.

Each Lodge and Chapter is presided over by a leader who is endeared with the title Worshipful Master (men) or Worthy Matron (women). Fleur De Lis #155 is headed by Worthy Matron Melinda Brown, whose love for children led her to create the back-to-school event some three years ago.

“We focus on the children a lot because we feel that they are our future and we want them to have all the supplies for school that is necessary for them to be successful,” said Brown. “I love children and I really want them to have the best.”

Brown’s place of work helped sponsor this year’s giveaway by charging each employee two dollars if they wore jeans on Friday. So if you walked into The Kidz Club on any given Friday and saw a sea of denim, it was for charity.

Currently, there are seven members in Chapter #155. If you are interested in furthering Christian values through sisterhood and charity, please contact Brown at (727) 768-7806.

International Free & Accepted Modern Masons, Incorporation and Order of the Eastern Star is a worldwide fraternity organized in 1950. The focus was to form a Christian Fraternal Society that had very high ideals about the development of men, women and children. Their purposes are moral, financial, benevolent, and charitable leadership to serve the present age, hence Modern in the name.