Editor’s note: The Ouray County Plaindealer started publishing profiles of nonprofits between Thanksgiving and New Year’s in 2020 as a community service. The purpose of these profiles is to highlight the meaningful work being performed by these organizations and let the community know how they can help them even more, as the holidays approach and we reach the end of 2024. Nonprofit organizations that are based in Ouray County and serve Ouray County are eligible for these profiles.

Year established as a nonprofit: 1899

What does your organization do for Ouray County?

The Ouray Elks Lodge is a great supporter of Ouray County. The lodge, at no cost, hosts many children’s events throughout the year. These events include an Easter Egg Hunt (with 1,200 eggs!), a haunted house, the Santa Delivers program, a soccer shoot, hoop shoot and a drug awareness program. The lodge also hosts a free community Thanksgiving dinner each year and a turkey bingo and dinner for veterans, and has Friday dinners for members and their guests.

We also host Bingo weekly from June-August, which is open to the public.

What do you list as your greatest accomplishments in 2024?

The $5,000 in grant money that we provided to community nonprofit groups and the $11,500 in scholarships awarded to the seven Ouray County students were two of our best accomplishments in 2024.

What are some goals or projects you have planned for 2025?

The lodge will hold a major raffle in 2025. In January, the membership will begin planning the item(s) to be raffl ed, to raise money for our community programs.

We will continue to make improvements on our historic building and prepare for a future goal of an elevator.

The electrical upgrades are estimated to cost more than $500,000 for the entire building. After those electrical upgrades are made, we can proceed with the elevator project, which is estimated to cost up to $200,000 at this time.

Tell us how the community can help you do more here in Ouray County.

The Elks is a service organization, and we are here to contribute to our community. The community can help us by attending our events and consider becoming a member of the lodge. Members can help us by volunteering for our events.

We are also accepting donations for our building projects.

For anyone interested in becoming a member or making a donation, call or email Elks Lodge Secretary Jill Scheu at 970-318-8489 or jscheu.ourayelks492@gmail.com. You can also visit ourayelks. org for more information.

Thank you to Jill and Steve Scheu for submitting this information.