On Dec. 14, the Plant Elks Lodge hosted their annual holiday dinner for Everyday Blessings, an organization in Lithia that partners with community agencies, local organizations and private donors to provide high-quality care for children and young adults in the foster care system. Through an impact grant of around $9,000 provided by Elks National, the Plant City Elks are able to work year-round with Everyday Blessings in the form of weekly dinners every Friday night, a special Easter dinner each spring and an annual holiday dinner near Christmas, among other events.
Last week’s holiday dinner hosted around 25 children from Everyday Blessings, including not only a holiday meal, but opportunities for the kids to meet Santa and each received gifts provided by Elks Lodge members and the Elks Lodge itself.
The following day, the Elks Lodge started early by fully preparing a mid-day luncheon for the Plant City Police Department before turning right around and holding a dinner for the Plant City Fire Rescue and EMTs the same evening.
The events hosted and served over 50 police officers and over 80 members of the fire department — along with their families — in addition to presenting a special award to the police department and fire rescue’s respective employees of the year, as selected by the departments themselves. For the police department, this year’s award was presented to executive assistant Carmen Butts — accepted at the event on her behalf by Captain Robert McLellan — with the fire department’s award presented to Captain John Carter.
While the police luncheon is held at noon, the department rotates shifts each year to ensure that officers and employees who aren’t able to attend one year are able to attend the next, additionally providing to-go bags at the end of the event for some employees that are actively serving their shifts during the event.
The Elks Lodge has provided these holiday meals for Plant City’s first responders for over 40 years, with all of the cooking done in-house.
“I had some wonderful volunteers help me in the morning and some of the same ones coming back to help in the evening,” Elks chaplain and long-time member Judy Wise said. “After the lunch we wash everything down, clean everything up and start again at four o’clock for the fire department.”
Additionally, in conjunction with the state Elks and Walgreens Corporate, the group is permitted to place boxes in Walgreens around the state to collect presents for local children. This week the Plant City Elks collected the toys from around town, divided them up alongside teachers Rachael Harvester and Rebecca Minjares and presented them to several kids at Advantage Academy. Leftover toys that were not age appropriate for that specific donation were divided among Plant City Police Officers to be given to local children throughout the week of Christmas.