The objective of the fund is to afford assistance to deserving widows and families, including mothers and sisters of freemasons who have been a member of a lodge in the Province of Down outside a six mile radius of Belfast. The inclusion of mothers and sisters is there to cover the case of a bachelor Brother who lives with his widowed mother or unmarried sister.
The fund covers the District Charity Committees of Banbridge, Bangor, Downpatrick, Newry and Newtownards. Within these districts there are 80 lodges with a total membership of over 2500 brethren. We currently have 120 widows on the fund. Bereavement Grants are also available
Assistance is by means annual means tested grants as the Committee may find best suited to the necessities of the applicant.
Applications should be completed by the Lodge in the first instance and these will then be forwarded to the District Charity Committee where they will be ratified and then sent to the Fund secretary for consideration by the Trustees.
A leaflet with full details is available by clicking here
If you wish to support the work of our charity and make a personal donation please forward cheques, made payable to “Down Masonic Widows’ Fund” to the Secretary. Thank you.
You can download a Gift Aid declaration by clicking here. This will allow us to claim Gift Aid.
Issue of June Cheques
Brethren all, it is usual at this time of the year to issue a cheque to each of the widows who are on our books, a small sum of money.
These have now been issued and each widow will be able to be lodge that into their bank account as and from the 1st June.
The Trustees in April considered that the energy crises was putting undue pressure on the financial situation of everyone but particularly our widows. To help alleviate this to some extent the Trustees decided to award an additional amount to the most necessitous of our widows.
An additional amount ranging from £180 to £225 had been delivered to widows in some of our Bands.
We hope that this will be of some assistance in these difficult times.
We wish all our widows an enjoyable summer season.