We’ve been holding lodge engagement forums at the Home Office. One of the ideas presented was to attend a couple of successful events hosted by other lodges so that we could learn from those events and share what we learn. Carol Swan, Home Office member services representative and president of Mission-Alamo Lodge, graciously invited lodge engagement forum participants to attend Mission-Alamo’s holiday party this year. For years I’ve heard about Mission-Alamo’s fantastic holiday parties so I was sure to accept Carol’s generous offer and was eager to learn.

If you’ve ever attended the Mission-Alamo holiday party, this is nothing new to you, but I’m going to cover it in detail for anyone wanting to take away information and maybe apply some of the ideas to your own holiday parties. If this is too much detail, just skip to the highlights section at the end.

As soon as I walked in to the San Antonio Home Association Building, it was obvious that this has been a well-coordinated party for years. I was instructed where to take my hot dish so that it could stay warm and was given instructions on signing in and taking a door prize ticket. Members of Mission-Alamo were able to enter a drawing for one of two $50 gift certificates. There also was a jar to guess the number of holiday M&M’s.

The Rathskeller and adjoining room were transformed with holiday decorations and Santa had quite the stage. The unwrapped children’s gifts that we were asked to bring were placed on the stage around Santa’s chair. President Swan showed off the kids’ craft area and I have to say, this area blew me away.

Mission-Alamo’s Youth Coordinator is Denise Wright and she planned, set-up and ran some very creative crafts! Children could make ornaments, create transparent pictures to hang in windows and more. The variety of activities was very impressive. And I hear that she comes up with other neat activities for children during the rest of the year.

The meal was outstanding with all of the sides brought by members and guests and the turkey, ham, stuffing and gravy provided by the lodge. There also were a ton of desserts brought by members and guests.

During the meal, I was fortunate to sit with Lamar Ratto and Norma Palacios, representatives of DePelchin Children’s Center. The center would be the recipient of the unwrapped gifts donated by attendees.

The DePelchin Children’s Center is an accredited foster care and adoption agency serving children and families in Texas. They work to break the cycle of abuse and neglect and to improve the mental health and physical well-being of children at risk of entering or already in the state’s child welfare system. Mission-Alamo’s Community Coordinator Laura Adams found this organization and arranged for it to be the recipient of the gifts.

I learned quite a bit about the DePelchin Children’s Center from Lamar and Norma and when they spoke to everyone before the meal, they shared information about the center and encouraged anyone considering fostering children to learn more. Mission-Alamo’s members and guests were able to make a great contribution to the DePelchin’s Christmas party for their foster families.

After the meal, Santa and Mrs. Claus visited! The children all sat around the stage and sang Christmas carols until he arrived. It was very impressive how Santa brought age-appropriate gifts for all of the children! Apparently Santa coordinates with the lodge’s secretary, Bernice Vogel, each year. Bernice and Dianne Larned help Santa by finding the gifts he suggests and wrapping them. Mission-Alamo Vice President Diane Cline and President Carol Swan helped organize the packages for Santa to give to the children.

Highlights

-The number of families with children and grandparents in attendance was outstanding. The children-centric activities (crafts, Santa visit) provided entertainment for all of the families.

-A great cause: Choosing the DePelchin Children’s Center to receive donations from attendees helped everyone feel good and demonstrated the giving nature of Hermann Sons Life to all of the children who were present and would later receive their own gifts.

-Teamwork from leadership: Although not every person who helped with the party was mentioned in this blog by name, the officers and other devoted members came together to prepare and host a fun event. This type of event takes a tremendous amount of work but is well worth it.

-Their coordinators are empowered! Fully utilizing and empowering the youth coordinator, community coordinator, communications coordinator and membership coordinator makes it possible for engagement to reach new heights.

So many lodges put on great holiday parties for their members. Everyone who works so hard to cultivate the sense of community and family through these types of events is making lodges stronger!