How charitable are Masons?
A basic teaching of Freemasonry is charity. The tradition of its members helping one
another is as old as its reputation for secrecy, and is still maintained in practice.
In the United States alone, more than forty million dollars per year is devoted to
maintaining Masonic Homes for aged members, widows, and orphaned children who are in
need, and additional amounts to help those not eligible or not desiring to enter such
institutions. Individual Lodge charities, in the aggregate, amount to even more.
Concern for non-members is also real. Lodges contribute to local charities, the Red
Cross blood programs, and many character-building organizations. Related Masonic
organizations support schizophrenia research, eye banks, multiple sclerosis treatment,
cerebral palsy care, respiratory research, and other humanitarian projects, and the New
York Grand Lodge sponsors a Foundation for Medical Research which specializes in the
field of gerontology.
Volunteers are active in Veterans Administration hospitals, summer camps for children,
work with the handicapped, and a host of other benevolent activities. When the ideals of
liberty, fraternity, and equality were novel, Masonry helped promote them, and our own
Grand Lodge was in the forefront, 150 years ago, in support of the movement to establish
free public schools in New York.
The half-million Masons in the United States who are Shriners are famous for their
hospitals for crippled children, and burns institutes, as well as for sponsoring the annual
East-West Shrine Football Game in support of this effort.