Willoughby-Cleveland #18 and Painesville #549 Team Up to Deliver 140 Bags of Warm Clothes to Veterans

Today, members of Willoughby-Cleveland #18 and Painesville #549 met at Worksmart Clothing in Willowick to load up 140 bags of warm clothing to be distributed to various agencies that will get them in to the hands of homeless veterans. While everybody's help is greatly appreciated, we need to recognize Mary from Worksmart for always giving us more than our monies worth. She is on the far left in the second picture. We also need to thank Joe Longo from Longos Pizza for once again allowing us use his box truck at no cost. We then made our way back to the lodge to unload and take them to the basement. Back at the lodge we had more members and their children and grandchildren help take them downstairs. We will arrange a day when we repack them in imprinted elks tote bags for distribution. Each bag contains long john  tops and bottoms, hat, socks, sweatpants and a hoodie. Funds for this project, which both lodges have worked together on for close to twenty years are provided mainly thru The Elks National Foundation Freedom Grant. Both lodges also supplement what the grant does not.