By David W. Myers
Contributing Editor
The Culver City Elks Lodge has given a check for more than $6,000 to the California-Hawaii Elks Association to help provide vision-screening and physical therapy to children with a broad range of disabilities.
The contribution increases the amount of money the two-state group has raised through the annual fund-raising effort to over $100 million since the yearly drives began in the 1950s.
Donations from Elk members in the two states totaled more than $2.5 million in the fiscal year that recently ended.
“We’re both pleased and proud that members of our Lodge were so generous with their time and money to help this great cause, especially because the economy has been tough and money for many people has been ‘tight,’” said Roy Johnson, Exalted Ruler of the Culver City Elks.
Without such contributions, Johnson added, many disabled children would not get the vision and physical-therapy help that they so desperately need.
The “theme child” of the latest fund-raising was Evelynn Pacheco, a kindergarten student with a rare vision abnormality that made it difficult for her to see out of her left eye and could eventually lead to blindness.
Contributions from the Elks helped to pay for her extensive vision care as well as new eyeglasses, both of which her cash-strapped parents say that they could not have afforded on their own.
The results of the help have been dramatic: Evelynn is now one of only five readers in her kindergarten class and was named Student of the Month last December.
Members of the Culver City Elks Lodge raise money for a number of other charities and provide an array of important community services throughout the year. Such help includes ongoing support for local military veterans, a college-scholarship program for the area’s high school students, and drug-prevention efforts aimed at teenagers.
The Culver Lodge was incorporated in 1954 and is part of a network that has more than 870,000 members across the United States. Information about joining can be obtained by dropping by its facility at 11160 Washington Place or by calling its on-site office, (310) 839-8891.
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