Greenfield Elks Lodge continues century-old tradition of delivering Christmas meals

GREENFIELD — The Greenfield Elks Lodge has been in the business of community service for more than a century, and this year is no different. On Saturday, more than a dozen Elks packaged and delivered supplies for Christmas meals to residents in need.

Elks Lodge members, and a few of their family members who came to help with the distribution, operated like a well-oiled machine. Turkeys were passed down the line, potatoes were tossed from one Elk to the next and rolls were gently placed on top of each box as the Elks worked their way up and down rows of 50 boxes.

Treasurer Tim Herzig said many of the members have been involved with the food distribution for years and know the drill by now. Herzig has been in charge of organizing the distribution for the past 10 years, but has been a member for 38 years.

“It’s pretty much the same as last year,” Herzig said. “We were established in 1913 and we’ve been doing it since then.”

Herzig said preparations start just after Thanksgiving, when he begins reaching out to the schools for names of families that would benefit from receiving a box of food. Then, in early December, the Elks Lodge contacts Food City in Turners Falls to put in orders for groceries. Each box is complete with a turkey, potatoes, stuffing, carrots, canned vegetables, butter, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, a gallon of milk and a pie — pretty much “everything you need for a good holiday meal,” he said.

After loading up the boxes, donated by Home Depot, with food, Elks members team up to load them into their vehicles and deliver them to residences around Greenfield. Similarly to how they load the boxes, the Elks tackle delivering them in the same smooth manner of a group that has done this dozens of times before.

Herzig added that while the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is a nonprofit, it operates much like a business to ensure smooth and sustainable operations that can continue to support the community year after year.

“We do have a budget for this and budgets every year for the charity work we do. This is for charity, but this is a business and we have to run it as such,” Herzig explained. “This is all volunteer. Everyone who’s here pays their membership fees and helps out with the other functions, too.”

Between membership dues, hall rentals and fundraisers, the Elks Lodge is able to provide Christmas meals and do other charitable work.

“We’re a large organization throughout the country, and our motto is charity. We go out for the veterans, we host Building Bridges luncheons once a month, we have a youth activities committee,” Herzig said. “There’s a lot that goes on throughout the year.”

While the food distribution ran fundamentally the same way as in the past, Herzig said this year the Elks made a few adjustments in how they selected the recipients of the boxes, focusing more on families with children.

“We get the names from TRIAD and Greenfield Public Schools, and sometimes members suggest names, and those names really seem to be the best we have gotten,” Herzig said. “One thing we focused on this year, and the school helped us with that, is that we focused a lot on families with multiple kids.”

Herzig added that Elks members volunteer because “community service is what they do,” but this year, community service came with an extra show of appreciation, as the Elks Lodge had two extra turkeys that were raffled off to members who assisted in packing and delivering the boxes of food.