It’s Anchors Aweigh for the S.S. Kenzie! Mckenzie Lodholz (age 19) from St. Louis, Missouri’s Grand Worthy Advisor (President), closed her term of office on Monday, June 27, 2016. Her “Anchor your Dreams” sessions, which also celebrated Missouri Rainbow’s 90th Birthday, were fun, fantastic and memorable. Her 40 Officers can be proud of their memory work and drills they performed. During this past year, Missouri Rainbow raised $4,383 for the St. Louis Shriners Hospital as well as donated 1,000+ items to them. Did you know Greene County (Springfield) has the largest population of homeless teens in Missouri? For those teens, to be distributed through Rare Breed, the girls attending this year’s convention prepared 380 “blessing bags” in the form of backpacks. Items in the bags included many daily hygiene products and snack-like bars. There was also a donation of 250 stuffed animals to a children’s home in Springfield. Giving service is a hard, but very necessary skill, for some people to learn and apply every day. Rainbow Girls know all about service.

Are you now wondering: What are Rainbow Girls? This is a Masonic organization “just” for girls! Their little sisters’ group, called Pledges, is from 7 to 11 years of age and the Rainbow Girls are from 11 to 20/21. Helping girls become leaders and teachers is a primary goal along with providing service in their communities. Some service examples are above, however each Rainbow group often chooses several service projects to tackle every year. While becoming a leader and providing service, they make forever friends – some of the Rainbow friendships at this year’s convention formed 1-60+ years ago! Yes, there are some of “yesterday’s” Rainbow Girls attending who are now 70+ years old. Then there is the fun. There was much fun at this year’s convention including a pizza/pool party, a carnival, dancing and even a chance to have hair, make-up and nails done before a big, fancy, formal banquet. At their home level, the girls find fun in all kinds of ways – sometimes it’s playing mini-golf or bowling together or it may be having a cooking challenge. Often they find fun in just being together, like working on one of those service projects. Core values such as being dependable, honest and having patience are modeled by older members and the supporting adults. Knowing the importance of wisdom, education, being confident and showing respect are also stressed.

Missouri’s division of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls recently held their 90th convention at the Ramada Plaza Hotel & Oasis Convention Center in Springfield, Missouri. From Friday morning, June 25 until Monday evening, June 28, approximately 375 Rainbow Girls and their supporting adult members gathered.

“These are just some of Missouri’s Rainbow Girls,” explained Mrs. Dorleta Lodholz, their Supreme Deputy–much like the CEO of a Company. “We have just as many here as we left at home because their summer school, work, church or family schedule just couldn’t accommodate the convention this year.” Mrs. Lodholz continued, “Girls at this year’s convention traveled from St. Louis, North Kansas City, Belton, Raytown, Lee’s Summit, Poplar Bluff, Rolla, St. Joseph, Liberty, Waynesville, Republic, Ashland, Joplin, Columbia, Springfield/Nixa, Harrisonville, Mexico, St. Charles, Taneycomo, and Wentzville but,” she cautioned, “many of those cities have girls in their groups representing two to six school districts plus we have a good number of home-schooled girls in our groups.”
Throughout the weekend girls competed in memorization challenges and enjoyed hearing their beautiful lessons performed by a girl or two from each local group who had been chosen to represent them. Nine scholarships totaling nearly $15,000 were awarded as were many individual awards. Their youngest girls, ages 7 to 11, performed a beautiful joining ceremony, all from memory!

On Monday, a new Grand Worthy Advisor (President) was elected and installed. Serving Missouri Rainbow will now be Erin McCann (age 19) from Columbia. Erin is a full-time student at MU, majoring in Elementary Education. Her theme for the year is “Let Rainbow Grow.” She will be serving with a lady who holds a position similar to an Honor Society President. Mrs. Lacie Glenn (Grandview) has a theme of “Be{YOU}tiful” and, together, they have a State Service project to raise money for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The cost of $25 per year for each year may be prohibitive for some families and these ladies want to make certain a book arrives in the mailbox each month for as many children as possible from the day he/she is born until the fifth birthday. As they each travel Missouri, they will be encouraging members and others to support this project in addition to local projects.

The Rainbow Girls of Raytown are proud to share the news that one of their members brought home a Rainbow Scholarship. Miss Alexis Hartenstein (age 19, Raytown graduate, now a resident of Lee’s Summit) received $1,000 and was also elected Missouri Rainbow’s Grand Worthy Associate Advisor (Vice President). For the Rainbow Girls of Lee’s Summit, Miss Katie Dustin was appointed as the Rainbow Girls Representative for the Dakotas and Montana. This means she will research Rainbow in those states and report back at the 2017 June convention. Both of these ladies have given a great deal to Rainbow as well as to their local communities and State Service Projects. Further, Miss Dustin was a Pledge before becoming old enough to join Rainbow Girls.

Find out more about Pledges and Rainbow Girls! The local groups are always accepting questions and applications for girls between the ages of 7 to 11 for Pledges and 11 and 20 for Rainbow Girls. The group is faith-based but non-denominational. For more information on the application process, please use the zip code locator at www.gorainbow.org or email a local Advisor from the list provided at www.moiorg.org (click on the Grand Assembly tab and then choose Assemblies).

Rainbow Gets Girls Ready for Life…Get Ready for Life in Missouri Rainbow!

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