Moose International
The Loyal Order of Moose is a fraternal and service organization founded in 1888, with nearly 1 million men in roughly 2,400 Lodges, in all 50 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces as well as Bermuda; along with its female auxiliary, Women of the Moose with more than 400,000 members in roughly 1,600 Chapters in the same areas and the Loyal Order of Moose in Britain these organizations make up the Moose International. It is headquartered in Mooseheart, Illinois.
Moose International supports the operation of Mooseheart Child City & School, a 1,023-acre (4.14 km2) community for children and teens in need, located 40 miles (64 km) west of Chicago; and Moosehaven, a 63-acre (250,000 m2) retirement community for its members near Jacksonville, Florida. Also, Moose Lodges and Chapters conduct approximately $75 million worth of community service (counting monetary donations and volunteer hours worked) annually.
Additionally, the Moose organization conducts numerous sports and recreational programs, in local Lodge/Chapter facilities called either Moose Family Centers or Activity Centers, in the majority of 44 State and Provincial Associations, and on a fraternity-wide basis.
The Loyal Order of Moose was founded in Louisville, Kentucky, in the spring of 1888 by Dr. John Henry Wilson. Originally intended purely as a men's social club, lodges were soon founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri and Crawfordsville and Frankfort, Indiana. The early order was not prosperous. Dr. Wilson himself was dissatisfied and left the order of the Moose before the turn of the century. When Albert C. Stevens was compiling his Cyclopedia of Fraternities in the late 1890s, he was unable to ascertain whether it was still in existence.
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