Anna Kleiner named Citizen of the Year

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At 30^th Annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Night

The 30^th Annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Night was held Feb. 29 at the Mineral Area Community Elks Lodge 2583, with Past Exalted Ruler Roland Seal serving as emcee.

Welcoming the approximately 150 first responders and guests who attended the banquet and program, Seal said, “We started this back in 1992, so it would actually be 32 years ago, but we had a two-year shutdown because of COVID. At any rate, we do welcome you. I also go back to 1992 to remind everybody that it was at that very first Law Enforcement Appreciation Night that several of us put our heads together and got to talking about Backstoppers.

“So, it was at that first one that we put together an ad hoc committee and started working with the Backstoppers organization to get it into St. Francois County. It took us a few years, but we finally were able to get Backstoppers in here, and that certainly is a big plus. Regrettably, we’ve had to use it too often in St. Francois County, but it’s just an added insurance for our officers and paramedics out here doing a very dangerous job. We do want to pause this evening and welcome everyone. We’re here to honor all of you.”

Evening speaker

After recognizing the dignitaries in attendance, Seal introduced the evening’s speaker, Anna Kleiner.

“We decided to do something a little different this year,” he said. “We wanted to try to explain to you all exactly what we do and what money we pump into our communities. Anna’s a member of the lodge. She’s a Past Exalted Leader of the lodge. She’s served as our lodge chairperson for our grants and our Elks National Foundation for the past seven years and has assisted in writing those grants for the last four years, helping us to acquire some $34,000 in grant awards, which all went back into our community.

Anna holds a doctorate in sociology. Many of you may know her from Park Hills. She was the economics director over there, back twice, but she was first there when they first did the consolidation. She was a very big part of that when Park Hills came into being. She does a lot of charitable work.

“One thing I admire about her is that she goes to a lot of these Civil War reenactments, and she puts up a very fine display about nursing during World War 1. She has all the World War I medical equipment, the tent, and the whole bit. It’s really quite interesting to see her performance. So, I’m going to have Anna come up and do a little bit of talking about our grants and where our money goes.”

Addressing the crowd, Kleiner said, “Each year, we look forward to hosting this event and honoring you and celebrating all of you for the vast amounts of service you provide to us. A lot of which we don’t really know everything you do for people. We just do our best to try to recognize that. Sometimes, it’s that way for the Elks Lodge as well. Sometimes, it feels like we hardly make a dent in anything, but we are a service organization, a charitable organization. So, we do have a number of programs that we implement each year to try to help our community in the ways that we can do that.

“Back in 1928, the then president of the Elks Grand Lodge — the Grand Lodge is the national organization based in Chicago — John F. Malley had a plan to unite the forces of the order into a mighty army for the service of mankind. It was at that time that the Elks created the Elks National Foundation, to which members of the Elks Lodges could donate money that would be used nationwide for a variety of programs. It was started at only $100,000, and today, that national foundation fund is over $82 million.”

Kleiner explained how this is accomplished on the local level. All Elks members and lodges are expected to raise a minimum per capita amount based on each lodge’s membership to donate to the foundation.

“It’s all voluntary, and we’ve had many, many members here do that over the years,” she said. “Sometimes a member can just donate $10 a year, once a year for 10 years, and that would be $100. Some members decide to donate $100 or more each year. So — if we achieve that minimum per capita amount, which we always do here — it allows us to leverage some grant money from the national foundation. The national foundation, which in short is called ENF, has some priority project areas. One is veterans and one is youth programs, such as scholarships and the hoop shoot. But there are also some salient social issues that are priorities for them in their community investments program. And that is issues such as alleviating food insecurity and addressing homelessness, which you all understand are pervasive problems in society and in our local communities.

“So, over just the past five years, the Middle Area Elks Lodge has been awarded $39,500 through about 15 different grant applications to ENF, but we don’t keep any of that money. We share 100% with local organizations and charities that serve people right here in St. Francois County. But in addition to the grant projects we do, we also like to support other charities such as Shop With a Cop or Backstoppers. Our work is not just limited to grant projects. What do we do in those priority areas? In regard to veterans, there’s an Elks pledge. So long as there are veterans, the benevolent and protective order of Elks will never forget them. And we work hard at this lodge to do just that. In the last few years, we’ve acquired some competitive grants through the Elks National Veterans Commission, which is part of ENF, to support Camp Hope, located in southern St. Francois County. Camp Hope provides opportunities for hunting and for healing for combat-wounded veterans of the global war on terror.”

According to Kleiner, lodge members have met with representatives from Camp Hope and have toured their facilities, which she described as “beautiful.”

“So, who else do we serve? She asked. If we look at the past seven years, we have supported efforts to the tune of about $50,000 in grant money. We have provided some equipment for Special Acres State School. We’ve hosted special proms for adults. We have donated money to the Park Hills and Bonne Terre Senior Centers’ meal programs. We have supported four food pantries serving Park Hills, Leadwood, Desloge, Bonne Terre, and the rural areas around this northern St. Francois County region. That’s kind of our service area because the Farmington Elks often serve Farmington, Bismarck, and other parts of the county, so we kind of share some of those activities. We have donated money to our three school districts — West County, North County, and Central — to help alleviate some of their debt for the school lunch program. We have supported SEMO Family Violence Council shelter in Bonne Terre, the Uplift Shelter in Farmington, and Share Blessings Transitional Housing Ministry and Shelter in Bonne Terre, the latter being one of the places where I have volunteered for about five years.

“Our big project, though, that we do each Christmas — and it is supported through ENF grant money and a lot of donations from our Elks members, families, and friends — is our Christmas food basket program. In collaboration with East Missouri Action Agency, they identify Head Start families to which they deliver these boxes of food. We purchase and assemble 125 food baskets each year. Each basket serves about four people, so that’s 500 individuals being fed each year. We pack in very tightly a lot of different food items in these boxes and also include either a turkey or a ham. If you look at those kinds of numbers, and we’ve done it for a number of years, I don’t know how many, but quite a few — 10 to 15 potentially, maybe more — in just six years, that would be 3,000 people fed through the Christmas basket program. So that’s a very important one to that for us.

Concluding her speech, Kleiner said, “You understand these challenges, you experience them and face them and encounter them each day, each night on the job. We support everything you do to help us and to help society address a lot of these issues that seem to worsen over time. You have such limited resources, and we do, too, but that’s why we just try to do our part to take advantage of these opportunities to apply for money that can go to help people.

“Our grant efforts and other donations to help the community are an important way that the middle area elks can try to alleviate some of these problems and ultimately enhance your efforts to help people and keep us all safe. We embrace these opportunities and leverage as many resources as possible to do this. Tonight, we honor all of your efforts to do the same.”

Citizen of the Year

Seal joined Kleiner at the podium and, in a surprise to everyone in the room, said, “I didn’t mention everything Anna does, but she’s an asset to our lives. She’s really a big asset to this community. As Anna mentioned, she volunteers with Shared Blessings. She spends a lot of time there. Anna has been very active with the Rotary. She’s very involved in our community, but she likes to kind of stay behind the scenes. Anna doesn’t beat her drums enough, but for all of the work that she does, we want to honor her a little bit tonight, too, by recognizing Anna Kleiner as our Citizen of the Year.”

Recognitions

Other recognitions that evening included:

–  Bonne Terre Police Department’s 2023 Police Officer of the Year: Patrolman Jonathan Courtaway

– Desloge Police Department’s 2023 Police Officer of the Year: Patrol Officer Katie Hovis

– Farmington Police Department’s 2023 Police Officer of the Year: Patrolman Aaron Bowles

– Park Hills Police Department’s 2023 Police Officer of the Year: Corporal Andrew Rieger

– Leadington Police Department’s 2023 Police Officer of the Year: Police Officer Mike Cole

– St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department’s 2023 Deputy of the Year: Deputy Joshua Gossett. Also recognized with a Life Saving Award were Deputy Eric Erchien, Deputy McKenzee Moore, and Deputy Andrew Gray

– Missouri State Highway Patrol’s 2023 Highway Patrolman of the Year: Trooper Ryan J. Steele, Troop C, Satellite

– Missouri State Park Ranger of the Year for 2023: Ranger Cody Smith

– St. Francois County Ambulance District’s 2023 Paramedic of the Year: Paramedic Kent Coleman

– St. Francois County 911 Communication Officer for 2023: 911 Communications Officer Sharma Becker

Kevin R. Jenkins is the editor of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at kjenkins@dailyjournalonline.com.