Elks fill 'love' baskets with holiday gifts, food

By PETE FONTAINE
Posted 1/2/20

By PETE FONTAINE There was an eye-popping scene inside the Tri-City Elks downstairs dining room on a recent Thursday night. For starters, about a dozen eight-foot long banquet tables were placed against the east wall and were almost overflowing with

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Elks fill 'love' baskets with holiday gifts, food

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There was an eye-popping scene inside the Tri-City Elks downstairs dining room on a recent Thursday night.

For starters, about a dozen eight-foot long banquet tables were placed against the east wall and were almost overflowing with everything a child would want for Christmas.

The spacious room also featured round banquet tables topped with a large variety of non-perishable foods, all kinds of paper goods as well as toiletries for adults and children.

In the middle of it all was Lori Eaton – a.k.a. Mrs. Everything for all Reasons and Seasons at Lodge 14 on West Shore Road – who had a list she didn’t have to check twice to see who was naughty or nice; this was a wish list that would ensure families in need will have a Merry Christmas.

“We call these our Christmas Love Baskets,” Deborah Mangina, the highly-respected current Exalted Ruler, offered. “This is both a memorial-like event as well as another example of our credo: Elks Care, Elks Share.”

Memorial-wise, it was Tri-City’s 7th Annual Food-Toy-Food-Essentials that Ted Budlong started many moons ago and was continued – as well as tripled in size – by Mark Eaton, a past Exalted Ruler at Lodge 14 who now serves as Vice President East of the Rhode Island Association of Elks.

It was the late Budlong, said Mark Eaton – who did most of the grocery shopping for this year’s foodstuffs – “who initiated the program filling the Love Baskets for a variety of people who were having troubles making ends meet around the holidays.”

So, for inside of three hours, Lori Eaton and Mangina and 20 Lodge 14 members and even their friends, filled what may have been a record 42 over-sized, high quality rubberized laundry baskets with hams, potatoes, rice, vegetables, stuffing, soups, pasta, a variety of canned meats, gravy and breakfast foods along with gift certificates to Stop & Shop and personal items.”

Lori Eaton then added: “We had at least three toys and gift certificates to stores for each child as far as the toys that ranged from bicycles to dolls to sports equipment that all came from our loving and caring members who packed this room on Saturday night, December 7, for our annual Christmas Cheer Toy Party.”

That event, she quickly added, “Was a free dinner with a band and all our member had to do was bring at least one unwrapped new toy. Like always, the Tri-City Elks membership went well over and beyond to families that otherwise might not have a Merry Christmas at all.”

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