BRADENTON BEACH – The Anna Maria Island Moose Lodge #2188 has won a Premier Lodge Award for a second consecutive year.
The honor was bestowed upon the AMI lodge and several other qualifying lodges nationwide during the annual International Moose Convention that took place June 20-23 in Reno, Nevada.
Byron Dalton became the AMI Moose Lodge administrator in mid-2019 and Patrick Kane has been the lodge president for two years.
Dalton said the lodge has earned the premier lodge honor for the past two years, but he’s not sure if or how many times the lodge earned that honor before.
“The last two years we were eligible for it, we received it. It’s truly an honor to get this. Out of a hundred or so lodges in Florida, only about half of them received this. A lot of lodges don’t get this,” Dalton said.
A lodge must satisfy a long list of criteria to win the award. The criteria includes increasing active membership during the annual fiscal year that ends April 30 and increasing total giving to Moose Charities for the fiscal year. A lodge can also win the award if its per capita contributions to Moose Charities equal or exceed the fraternity-wide per capita average of $6.51 per member and additional criteria are also met.
“We met everything on that list. We busted our butts,” Dalton said.
The AMI Moose Lodge features a patio area and deck face the Gulf of Mexico. – Joe Hendricks | Sun“The lodge earns the recognition because of the hard work of the lodge officers that are the leadership of the lodge. Patrick was the lodge president last year too, so this is his second time earning this honor. We also have a phenomenal crew and a phenomenal staff that work together to make the lodge as good as it is,” Dalton said.
“All lodges were expected to attend the convention and roughly 2,300 Moose members attended.
Attendance was really good and we believe every lodge was represented,” Dalton said.
Dalton, Kane, Past President Steve Boniberger, Vice President David Shevchik and lodge officer Kip Altman attended the convention. Altman also received his fellowship degree of merit.
“There’s four degrees and he just hit the third degree,” Dalton said of Altman’s accomplishment.
When a lodge achieves premier status, the lodge administrator and the lodge president also receive Moose Leadership awards.
“We’ll receive framed certificates when we go to the annual Florida Moose Association convention in September,” Dalton said.
Located on the Gulf of Mexico and boasting more than 17,000 members, the AMI Moose Lodge has the largest membership of any Moose Lodge in the world. Funds raised and donated by Moose Lodge and its members help provide care for children and teens in need at Mooseheart Child City and School on a 1,000-acre campus 40 miles west of Chicago. The funds also provide care for senior Moose members at Moosehaven, a 70-acre retirement community near Jacksonville.
The AMI Lodge also supports the Bradenton Beach Police Department. Over the past two years, the lodge has made two donations, including $2,000 in June, to the police department to help purchase computer simulation programs used for firearm training.
The lodge’s biggest fundraiser is the weekly Queen of Hearts drawings that take place on Wednesdays. No one pulled the queen on June 28 and the jackpot for the Wednesday, July 5 drawing will be $157,396 if a lucky member pulls the Queen of Hearts.
