North Carolina Mason
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/960981
March/April 2018 The North Carolina Mason Page 3 Beth Grace photos Giving is what Masons do. ey do it in countless ways. ey give up weekend after weekend to do what's right, to do what's needed. Some Masons have been doing this for decades. In Salisbury, the brothers of Andrew Jackson #576 spent a long, sunny day in February stirring vat after vat of Brunswick stew to serve thou- sands (literally!) of residents who consider Brunswick Stew Day – this year is the 60th or 61st, depending on who you ask – a tradition one simply does not miss. Hundreds of pounds of chicken, beef, pork and potatoes, carrots, celery and onions, peas, corn, tomatoes, lima beans and spices – and a lot of elbow grease – go into making the stew. Some 600 or so pounds of the stuff. e brothers raise upwards of $20,000 for our Masonic charities. Just a few weeks later on a chilly March day, hundreds of ham-hungry residents from near and far line up outside Riverside #606 for the 55th annual Ham Day. e brothers serve breakfast, lunch and dinner while volunteers in the kitchen work without ceasing all day, making some 5,000 biscuits by hand, prepping takeout bags of biscuits and full dinners, complete with candied yams, green beans, scrambled eggs at breakfast and grits all day. People come from miles around – including busloads from the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford and WhiteStone: A Masonic and Eastern Star Community in Greensboro. In fact, proceeds this year were split among those two homes and Local Boy Scout Troop #333, whose members ran all day cleaning up tables and keeping the dining room clean and clear for the next group of hungry locals. It's in the giving that the real gift becomes clear: the gift of time and love from good men doing good things for good people in need. Ham in the daytime, stew in the evening, charity all the time Brothers feed a long line of fans at Ham Day, one of the oldest fundraisers in NC Masonry. Above: Stirring the Brunswick Stew Day in Salisbury is a 24-7 job. Inset above: Brothers, family and friends help bag take-out stew orders. Nobody goes hungry at Ham Day!