Sell Chapel Outreach Helps Employees and Those Across Globe

Members of the Sell Chapel Outreach Committee

One of the most popular clichés is, “It is better to give than to receive.”  Donating and serving is an important part of the Mission of Love at Masonic Villages. Inside the Sell Chapel in Elizabethtown, residents and community members offer their talents, time and money through the Sell Chapel Outreach Fund, which helps employees and those across the globe. Resident members of the Sell Chapel congregation; Pastor Preston Van Deursen, the director of spiritual care; and Mallory Brinser, spiritual care administrative assistant, make up the Sell Chapel Outreach Committee, which decides the people, organizations, or causes that benefit from the fund each year. More than $80,000 was raised for the fund in 2017.

The Sell Chapel Outreach Fund, which began in 2000, has become a Masonic Village community tradition. A large portion of Sell Chapel’s outreach consists of the Employee Assistance Fund, which many campus organizations, residents and even staff, contribute to regularly. More than $30,000 assisted 38 Masonic Village employees in need with monthly bills and unexpected costs in 2017. Last year, the fund was able to assist a couple whose child was born with a heart defect. The child’s condition required extensive and financially draining surgery and prolonged hospitalization.

Locally, Sell Chapel’s Outreach Fund supports community charities that aid troubled youth, single mothers and hungry, homeless and uninsured families. The fund has also reached outside of Pennsylvania and across the globe. More than $15,000 was distributed in 2017 to support families in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and Haiti who were set back by recent natural disasters.

If you’d like to support to the Sell Chapel Outreach Fund, you can make a donation in a designated envelope in one of the chapel’s offering boxes. Another option is to donate to any of the fund’s charities in honor of a Masonic Village colleague, resident or friend. For more information, call 1-800-599-6454.