The Joseph Lodge No. 259 celebrated eight years of serving the community in Coahoma County with a ceremony at the Coahoma County Expo Center in the early part of March.
Micheal Smith, the Joseph Lodge grand master for the state of Mississippi, attended while Leo Mason, the Joseph Lodge grand secretary for the state of Mississippi, received a key to the city.
Curtis Glinsey, past worshipful master, spoke about the organizations accomplishments the past year.
“We gave away food at the lodge,” he said. “We gave away back to school stuff. We helped people doing different things. We also help veterans.”
Board of Supervisors President Johnny Newson from District 4 and Board of Supervisors District 5 representative Roosevelt Lee helped make it possible to give away six bicycles.
“The best thing was when we asked the supervisors and the supervisors gave us some bikes,” Glinsey said. “We gave away bikes with the back to school stuff.”
Glinsey said the lodge also gave away 30 book bags.
He highlighted the growth the past eight years.
“We started off with nine people and now we have 27 on the roll,” Glinsey said.
In the coming year, Glinsey said there are plans to do work on the Joseph Lodge No. 259 building on Harrison Avenue and to be more community active.
“We plan to go to go to the nursing home,” Glinsey said. “We have a brother out there named Willie Ivy at the Greenbough Nursing Home. We constantly go out, pick him up and take him out so he could eat, go different places, ride around awhile and then we take him back in a couple hours.
“We plan to go to all the nursing homes at one time or another, do things like take socks over. Sometimes we find and elderly that can’t cut their yard. Then we help them do their yard.”
Joseph Lodge No. 259 is also starting to get the younger generation involved.
“We give the people a choice,” Glinsey said. “You talk about different gang violence and we offer them a different alternative. Instead of going to gang violence, we offer them a chance to come into masonry.”
Children get involved with the lodge and participate in service projects.
“The child has to be a descendant of a mason,” Glinsey said. “Then what it does is we start them off early as a trail master.”
