Their first meetings were held in the Aldergrove Opera House until the Aldergrove Elks Hall (above) was built in 1925.

---

The Aldergrove Elks:

Over 85 Years of Making Our Community A Better Place To Live!

The Aldergrove Elks Lodge # 66 received its charter on June 23rd, 1923 with a membership of forty gentlemen. Of the charter members, one was Sam Dragan, who not quite of age, was needed to make up the fourty required for constitution.

The membership, then as now, was made up of many prominent citizens of Langley, Aldergrove and Matsqui, among them were R.A. Payne, Sam Campbell, Art Ross, Ed Dobson, Goodman Hamre and Harold Endacott.

Their first meetings were held in the Aldergrove Opera House until the Aldergrove Elks Hall was built in 1925. Sam Campbell, Chief Customs and Immigration officer at Aldergrove Customs, was the first Exalted Ruler of the Lodge, and since that time there have been fifty-two Exalted Rulers, the present one being John Jackman who is the fifty-third.

Since its inception, the lodge has always been active in helping the community by giving Christmas Cheer Hampers to the needy, the annual Christmas Tree celebration, and running a successful bingo hall for many years until the operation was turned over to the Lions Club.

Over the past seventy-five years, there have been a number of other community support projects sponsored by the Lodge, including local junior sports teams, starting with the Aldergrove Elks Senior B softball team which was runner-up in the provincial playoffs of 1948 to today's Aldergrove and Abbotsford Minor Baseball, Football and Hockey teams; as well as funding scholarships at Aldergrove Secondary School.

The Elks have also been active in providing fun places for the community to gather, including obtaining an option on the area where the ballpark is situated. The option was turned over to the Aldergrove Agricultural Assn. who held a car raffle to pay for it. Most of the work in preparing the park was done by Aldergrove Elks and it became the first lighted ball park in the Valley, then recently installing the children's gym in the Park with four concrete picnic tables. Elks also contributed most of the money towards the Spray Pool in Aldergrove Park.

One of the more public events that Elks look forward to each year has been the Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast which has been held for over thirty years. Our main charity, of course, is the Elks Purple Cross Fund which contributes assistance to needy children in the district, supplying hearing aids to deaf children and providing a school for hard of hearing children and their parents.

Another activity involves the B.C.Elks Provincial Children's Camp Society. The Society has three camps operating at present, one on Denman Island, one at Kootenay Lake and one on Lake Ness at Prince George. A fourth Camp, Camp Elkgrove in Aldergrove Lake Park, is now completed.

The land for it has been leased from the Greater Vancouver Regional District and we have done a considerable amount of work improving it, including moving one of Aldergrove's Historical Landmarks, The Shortreed Cabin, on to the site.

We welcome new members to assist us in our community work. Call 604. 856 3566