by Senior Grand Warden Paul T. Tourville
CS Giving Foundation Helps Push Grand Master’s Appeal to $70K
What an amazing night! The 14th annual Wild Game dinner fundraising event hosted by CS Giving Foundation was a huge success. For those who do not know, the CS in CS Giving Foundation is an abbreviation for Com-pass & Square. That’s right, this charitable foundation was established several years ago specifically by Freemasons designed to raise money primarily for Wiscon-sin childhood charities.
Over the last 14 years, CS Giving Foundation has written checks to charities totaling more than $400,000. This foundation is a huge supporter of the Scottish Rite Children’s Dyslexia Center in Milwaukee (www.childrensdyslex-iacenters.org) having donated over $150,000 to them alone. It also continues to support the Stars and Stripes Honor flight (www.starsandstripeshonorflight.org), Two Lives One Heart (www.twolivesoneheart.com), Tin Star charity for children of Fallen Officers, Wisconsin Hero Out-doors (wiherooutdoors.org), Milwaukee Teen Reach Adventure Camps for abused and neglected children, Wisconsin Masonic Foundation Defibrillator Program for Milwaukee Public Schools, Sweet Abilities who employs young adults with special needs and annually donates to the Grand Master’s appeal. This year it takes specific pride that its a donation of over $3,500 put the Grand Master’s appeal for feeding hungry children to the historic and record-breaking number of $70,000!
The Foundation was the brainchild of Brothers Don Childers and Jim Becker, two proud Freemasons. As the years moved on Brothers Paul Tourville, Jerry Branski, and Jeremy Koss joined the Board of Directors. These five proud Freemasons, along with a lot of help from family members, other Freemasons, and a crew of volunteers put on one heck of an event. They each have their role. Whether it’s Bro. Don working tirelessly to gather hundreds of items for the evening, Bro. Jim connecting with his relationships to fill the room full of corporate-sponsored tables, Bro. Jeremy handling all of our technology, registration, and promotion, Bro. Jerry who brings his corporate relationships and loads of volunteers, or Bro. Paul is the voice and organizational director of sorts on the big night. It works well because they work well as Brothers.
This year’s venue was new, its dinner sponsor was new, and they welcomed a lot of new volunteers to the event that made it amazingly successful. The most successful ever. Over the years the event has focused on selling corporate sponsorships which include companies from the area, sonic Lodges, other Masonic charities, and guests. The event includes several raffles of various hunting/fishing items, vacation packages, a silent auction, and of course meat raffles. Nearly 300 people annually attend the event which is highlighted by a fabulous meal and of course a live auction. It’s no joke, it’s a long night for these five Freemasons and their team but they do it because their heart tells them it’s important. It’s a great display for our great fraternity. Masons being Masons. They look forward to another amazing year next year as they celebrate their 15th annual Wild Game Dinner event. Mark your calendars now, reserve early, it always sells out! Next year’s event will be on April 10th, 2022. (www.cs-giving.org).
