Happy October Members. I know I say this every month, but how is it even October yet? The months really go a lot faster as I get older that’s for sure.  I writing this article on September 21st and yesterday it was 80 degrees and we were able to take a boat ride.  I still have a few things left to pick in the garden, squash mostly, and most of my flowers are still looking pretty amazing.  Sooner rather than later though, it’ll be time to pull the garden and dump the flowers and start getting ready for all things winter.

In September we were able to give away quite a few donations again.  It’s so wonderful to be able to continue to support our communities.  In September we donated $600 to the Mesabi Range VFW Post #1171, $500 to Youth in Action, $250 to Minnesota DARE, $100 to Mesabi Fit Coalition, $500 to Biwabik Area Civic Association for their “Honktober” Fest event geared towards family and children’s activities, $500 to the Boys & Girls Club of Hibbing and $1,387.00 to the Minnesota Historical Society to defray the costs of digitizing the Eveleth Newspaper from 12/28/1961 to 3/5/1964  

This is a project that was brought to us by Dave Hamalainen after he was doing some research regarding our Doheny bonspiel and the history of our building.  During his research he discovered that the only copies of some of the newspapers were bound paper copies that were located at city hall.  A lot of the historical information is on microfilm reels which needs to be digitized in order to have copies made or get some of this valuable history of our area.  We decided what better time start taking on this project than when we will also be celebrating our buildings one hundredth year.  Once those films are digital, they’ll be available for all to read through and make copies of our rich history right here in Eveleth.

In September we also held our Side-by-Side Raffle that you’ve been hearing about or may have even purchased a ticket for.  We had 300 tickets in total printed and sold 284 of them.  We had a nice crowd at the Lodge and the winner of the side by side was Terri Rozinka. She was sure excited when she found out.  The proceeds from our raffle will soon be donated to the new pocket park in Eveleth.  You may have seen that the city has already started construction on this cool new space right across the street from Eggy’s Red Garter in Eveleth.  More information about this donation will be in next month’s article.

Bingo has started up again at the Gilbert VFW.  They will be holding it every other Sunday starting at 2 p.m. They held their first session of the Fall on the 17th of September and sold 83 packets, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Our Friday night bingo is still going strong as well.  Friday night meals have begun again and have brought in new people, who have hopefully stayed to enjoy bingo. We also offer bingo at the Downtown Bar every Thursday night, Jim’s Sports Bar & Grill in Chisholm on Monday evenings and twice a month at Mike’s Pub in Hibbing.  There’s definitely no shortage of bingo around the area.

Our Student of the Month Scholarships will begin again in October.  This year we’re going back to an in-person presentation because we think it’s important to recognize the students’ achievements and celebrate their success.

We’ve been discussing our next purse bingo.  Most likely we will hold in February again, we had such an amazing turnout last year, however this year, we’re going to have to cap our total number of seats, we were kind of packed in last year.  Watch for more information on this. 

October will bring our “Octoberfest meal”, the 100th “birthday” of our building and possibly curbside candy again.  I know they’re busy planning Ladies Day for November and soon after it’ll be Christmas, our Doheny and Open Bonspiels, Mel and Hammer are planning another Wild Hockey game bus trip too.  The fun just never ends at the Eveleth Elks.  

Until next month 

– Thanks for your continued support!