75th anniversary celebration for Moosomin Elks Club this weekend
October 14, 2025, 10:17 am
Donnie Matichuk
The Moosomin Elks Club is celebrating 75 years of service to the community, and is holding festivities this Friday and Saturday.
The weekend will include a banquet Friday night, the Elks provincial Walk-a-thon Saturday afternoon, and another banquet Saturday night.
We spoke with Moosomin Elks Club president Ron Potter for his thoughts on the important achievement.
Potter recalls that the Moosomin Elks received their charter from Grand Lodge in 1950.
“I believe that there are 60, maybe 70 names on that charter, which is still hanging in the lodge today. At one point in time I think we were up to 120 members. But people come and go, and I think that there’s six, seven other charitable groups in town.
“I think that for the most part, back in the day people would be part of multiple groups, but now they kind of pick and choose. We’re very fortunate for the guys we have. We’ve got a couple members that are into or coming up to their 50th year, which is also cause for some celebration.”
He mentioned some of the large projects in Moosomin over the years that the Elks have been involved in.
“Some of the things that we’ve raised some big money for would be things like the swimming pool when it was starting up, the hospital was another big one.
The rink, of course, was a really big project that we helped with, as well as the ball diamonds when they were being built. Really anything that was a huge project in Moosomin, we were involved.”
Many towns in Saskatchewan have no Elks Lodge or any service clubs at all. Potter says he’s both grateful that Moosomin has one and that he can be a part of it.
“Lots of things that we do or that we’ve contributed to have no ‘Elks’ sign, and while it would be nice to have recognition, that’s not what it’s about.
We’re not doing it for publicity. If someone comes and pats me on the back that’s great, but it’s really knowing for myself that I’ve been able to help someone.”
The weekend will have a few different events to celebrate the Moosomin Elks 75th anniversary.
“I’m going to be doing some history on some of the bigger things we’ve done on the Friday night, some of the big things that we’ve helped make happen in town. That’s mostly sold out by now, you had to buy tickets early so that we could order the food, but we’ve got almost 100 people there already. It’s also our meeting day for our executive, so there’s probably 35-40 of them coming.
Then on the Saturday, we’ll be hosting our annual Walk-a-thon for the 50th anniversary of that in Saskatchewan. After that there will be the supper and speakers, and a presentation from one of the families. There’s also a 50/50 draw that night for the Saskatchewan Elks, and there will be 12 winners of $400 each.”
The Walk-a-thon is open to anyone in town that would like to participate.
“We’d certainly love if people would come walk. The Walk-a-thon has been going for 50 years now, and while it’s not as well attended as it used to be, we’d really appreciate having people come out. It starts at around 2 pm, at the legion, so if you want to come a bit early we can put an Elks bib on you, and you can walk proudly to raise some money for those in need. It used be a bit of a marathon because some places would have a 25 kilometre walk! I wasn’t there for my exercise, I’m there trying to raise some awareness for a charitable group.”
Anyone who would like to make a personal donation to the Elks can have peace of mind knowing that it will stay in Moosomin.
“We’ll make sure that a donation stays local and that it will benefit someone here in town.”
50/50 tickets for the Elks draw will be sold by members around town, and you can contact Ron Potter for further details and directions.
