Freemasons light the way with £10,560

The Devonshire Freemasons have recently made a grant of £10,560 to the Eddystone Trust in recognition of the extra costs and increased difficulties they have encountered during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Eddystone Trust is an independent charity that has been operating across the southwest for nearly 30 years. They deliver a range of services to people that loosely comes under the heading of sexual health, encompassing health education, provision of prevention services and much needed support to people living with HIV with some services also relate to wider sexual health. The current pandemic leaves the clients they support in the category of high risk to infection from Covid 19.

At a meeting which took place at the headquarters of the Eddystone Trust, the Clay Factory near Ivybridge, Peter Keaty the Assistant Provincial Grand Master of the Devonshire Freemasons accompanied by Reuben Ayres and Walker Lapthorne met Mags Davies Chief Executive of the Eddystone Trust to present her with a framed certificate denoting the grant.

The grant was made to support a one-year project. The bulk of the resource required is for extra staffing costs; the groups need to be developed and coordinated with the need to train and support volunteers.  To achieve this they need to employ somebody for one and a half days a week, also needed are support equipment comprising of 5 computer tablets plus 5 sim cards.

The grant from Devonshire and Somerset Freemasons came through the Masonic Charitable Foundation, which is funded by Freemasons, their families and friends, from across England and Wales and the David Medlock Family Trust.

In response to the extraordinary need created by the coronavirus pandemic, Freemasonry is providing special funding of £2.75 million for projects helping those who are particularly affected by the virus. This extra money comes on top of the estimated £45 million given to charity every year by Freemasons

Peter Keaty when presenting Mags Davies with the certificate said that one of the main objectives of Freemasonry is to support those less fortunate within our society, the work carried out by the Eddystone Trust and their volunteers is so important, especially at this time and we congratulate them on their commitment to their chosen charity. 

Mags Davies said in reply that the Freemasons assistance towards the costs of meeting this urgent need will help the charity to react quickly to this crisis, without your help we would have found it almost impossible to have reached our objective in a timely manner.