Masons help with charity drive

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The Freemasons lodge in Broxburn has played its part in helping distribute over £1 million worth of goods to charities and community social enterprises across Scotland over the last two years.Masons at Lodge Buchan St John No 636 started the campaign when the pandemic started in April 2020 - hoping to help community groups in dealing with lockdown.The campaign, called the ‘Lodge Buchan St John 636 Inter Province Community Care Initiative’, has so far helped in distributing over £1 million worth of goods across the country.The Freemasons had already been investing in the local community in Broxburn since they moved back to Broxburn Bowling Club from Deans in 2018, with monthly calls for cash donations to local charities and food banks.The new campaign coincided with the foundation of the ‘Scottish Constitution Freemasonry Support’ Facebook page, which catalogues charitable donations by Freemasons globally.Now the page has over 6000 members - with the current tally standing at over £1.8 million worth of identifiable donations from 2020, donations can either be goods, like food or clothes, or financial donations.The Broxburn Lodge of the Freemasons contributed a large portion of the donations, in no small part for the efforts of Kevin Taggart, former Master of the Broxburn Freemasons.Kevin runs a haulage company, and used his connections in the industry to save produce - food, clothes, etc - from going to landfill, diverting it to local community groups that needed it most.Broxburn masons would then help in distributing full artic lorries full of produce around West Lothian from various local companies, supermarkets, and other businesses.The amount of produce quickly became too much to distribute around West Lothian, so