Once the sorting was complete, boxes full of gifts and useful items for veterans were loaded into a truck from Peterson Motors of Pierre and delivered to Hot Springs on December 16, 2019.
Due to the great donations the Pierre Elks Lodge received from our partners with the 2019 Stocking Stuffer program, one 80 inch and two 75 inch flat screen TVs were purchased for the veterans at the Michael J. Fitzmaurice State Veterans Home in Hot Springs. This photo from January 2020 shows one of the mounted units.
The annual Pierre Elks Aviation Day was held January 29, 2020 in the South Dakota Discovery Center in Pierre. The 2020 event was sponsored by the Pierre Elks Lodge #1953 with help from the Discovery Center, South Dakota Civil Air Patrol-Pierre Chapter, South Dakota Department of Transportation Office of Aeronautics Services and the Pierre Municipal Airport.
About 300 youth took part in the successful 2020 Aviation Day. Everyone got a glider to assemble, fly and take home.
Besides having fun with the gliders at the 2020 Elks Aviation Day, children also enjoyed other hands on activities like creating clothes pin airplanes, toilet paper roll planes, whirl gigs and they learned how to construct homemade rockets.
On June 17, 2020, the Pierre Elks Lodge #1953 and NextEra Energy Resources held 9th annual South Dakota Kite Day at Hilger’s Gulch near the State Capitol Building in Pierre, SD.
Over 300 youngsters attended the 2020 Kite Day, as sunny skies and good southeast winds greeted them. Elks members who were on hand assisted the kids with prepping their new kites for flight on the hills and flat areas of Hilger's Gulch.
Shown here is Elks Kite Day organizer Steve Wegman being interviewed about the 2020 event by South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
Former Lodge 1953 PER Marc Ulmen received the "best dressed volunteer" award at the 2020 Kite Day. He is shown here helping one of the attendees in getting her kite to soar.
After the 2020 Kite Day, youth got to take their new kite home and were able to enjoy it the rest of the summer while learning that science can be fun!
Shown here are some of the local Elks members and other volunteers who helped make the 2020 Kite Day a success.
Pierre Elks Lodge #1953 Tiler Jeri Smith was awarded the 2020 Officer of the Year honor at the September 16 meeting.
In 2020, Pierre Elks Lodge #1953 was awarded a $5,500 Elks National Foundation Beacon grant. One of the projects funded through the grant involved the Lodge teaming with LaMinestra Restaurant of Pierre to provide food for some of the Thursday fall/winter banquet meals at the SE Methodist Church. Shown here preparing to distribute the September 17 meals is Barb Lindbloom of the church (and volunteers).
Here is a sample of what was served to those who drove through the church parking lot to pick up the pre-packaged meals on September 17, 2020. About 200 guests were served.
Lodge #1953 member Lacey Walz was given the Elk of the Year award at the October 7, 2020 meeting. Walz is shown here with Lodge Exalted Ruler Jonathon Ward.
PER Matt Schatz received the Elks Citizen of the Year award from Exalted Ruler Jonathon Ward at Pierre Elks Lodge #1953's October 7, 2020 meeting.
On October 14, 2020; some members of Pierre Elks Lodge #1953 gathered to clear garbage in the ditches along a two mile portion of Highway 14 east of Pierre. The lodge sponsors the road section as part of the Adopt a Highway project.
Cans, plastic bottles, tire remnants and other random garbage were cleared from the ditches as part of the 2020 ditch walk by these lodge members and other volunteers.
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