The Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation (then the Pennsylvania Youth Foundation) was established in December, 1981, under the direction of then-Right Worshipful Grand Master Samuel C. Williamson. Seeing a need for an organization that would put into practice the Masonic fraternity's commitment to our Commonwealth's young people, Brother Williamson directed the Grand Lodge to create and endow a foundation to serve Pennsylvania's Masonically-sponsored youth groups. Brother Williamson encapsulated his vision for Masonic involvement with youth this way:
The
new Foundation Board was tasked with converting the former
Thomas Ranken Patton Masonic School
for Boys into a conference center for youth. The facility
was a trade school for Masonically-related orphans which
had closed in 1976, and had three good buildings for the
purpose. The Youth Foundation took up immediate residency
there, and early conferences were held in former machine
and brick shops until rennovations could be made. Two
major construction projects, the first in 1983, the most
recent in 1998, have turned the old Patton School into
a top-grade youth conference center.
In
2006, the Pennsylvania Youth Foundation merged
with the former PA Masonic Foundation for Children, assuming
their roles in supporting prevention and education efforts
among all of Pennsylania's children and youth, while continuing
their previous mission of support to the Masonic-sponsored
youth groups of PA and other important programs.
The
Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation is proud to continue
making history among Pennsylvania's youth, and to be involved
in the lives of the leaders who will write tomorrow's
history for all of us!