Ever wonder the impact that cheerful service can bring to local communities? Fellow brothers from El-Ku-Ta Lodge of the Great Salt Lake Council can tell you! It started in early December when El-Ku-Ta Associate Lodge Adviser Dave Bresnahan was attending a local medical relief core event within his community. The purpose of the event was to administer vaccination shots at a local relief shelter to the homeless population within the Great Salt Lake City area and build hygiene kits for all who came to receive a vaccination.
According to Bresnahan, “there are at least 1,000 homeless people on any given day during the winter months at the three local relief shelters, 300-400 of them being children and another 1,000 homeless that don’t go to the three relief shelters.” Bresnahan along with the other volunteers worked for hours, but realized that there were still thousands of hygiene kits that needed to be made. That’s when the call went out to his fellow brothers in El-Ku-Ta Lodge.
Within just a few weeks’ notice, they managed to have 24 Arrowmen gather and just under three hours, put together 2,000 hygiene kits. These hygiene kits were distributed throughout the months of January and February to all of those who needed assistance from the relief shelters to help them stay clean and healthy. El-Ku-Ta Lodge has already told the relief shelters that if they run low on hygiene kits, they are more than willing to come and do it again! Following the volunteer event, the adults surprised everyone with pizza for their hard work.
This isn’t the only event that El-Ku-Ta Lodge does to help support their community. This past November, Arrowmen helped packaged food at a local Denny’s to give to community members who would have not been able to have a Thanksgiving dinner. They packaged meals over three nights with about 40 Arrowmen attending each night. Their efforts had made a difference as over 1,000 community members were able to enjoy Thanksgiving. Bresnahan said, “That with all of this cheerful service, the enthusiasm of the lodge is the greatest it has ever been. We have seen a great spike in activity of Arrowmen and this is due to the fact that they have been involved in meaningful service!” El-Ku-Ta Lodge is truly showing what cheerful service really means by doing this service project.