Joe* was just doing his job when the accident happened. He was completing a routine day of police work, out patrolling the streets, when a car slammed into him. The impact left him with kidney damage, and tipped off a series of medical issues. His health eroded with each passing year, until he was forced to retire early from the job he loved.
His failing kidneys led to diabetes, and then, to dialysis three times a week. He reached further and further into his savings to cover the escalating bills, but there was no end in sight. With no family to lean on, he had nothing left.
“I was trying to make it on my own,” Joe says. “My mother and father raised me that way: You got bills, you pay them. But between medical bills and everything that had happened — all the money I’d saved was gone.” Finally, he accepted a Masonic brother’s offer to help.
“When my father died, I had my mother. When my mother died, I thought I had nobody,” Joe says. “But my lodge brother put in a call to Masonic Outreach for me. He put in a call for a brother in distress. And Masonic Outreach was there to help.”
Masonic Outreach assigned Joe a care manager, and worked with him to create a financial plan. They’ve made it possible for him to continue to make ends meet, helping pay medical and household bills. They helped him get on a list for a kidney transplant, and are supporting the numerous medical procedures that he must complete before the surgery.
Joe is fiercely proud of his career in the police force and his brotherhood in the Masons. He says he wishes he found the fraternity even earlier in life – he thinks it’s something everyone would benefit from, starting with the youth orders.
“Masonry has improved me. It’s changed the way I think,” he says. “We’re an organization of men who want to help.
If more people got involved in it, there’d be less problems for police officers.”
“With my family gone, I just have my brothers,” he adds. “If I need help, I can call someone,” he says. “Thank God Masonic Outreach was there.”
*Names and identifying details have been changed to protect client privacy.