Thomas Pulkkinen of East Boothbay has been elected to lead the 186 Lodges and 18,000 Masons located throughout Maine for the next two years.

As Maine’s 98th Grand Master of Masons, Pulkkinen also serves as president of the Maine Masonic Charitable Foundation.

A native of Auburn, Maine, Pulkkinen began his Masonic journey in St. John’s Lodge in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and soon after joined Bay View Lodge in East Boothbay where he served as the Lodge Master and secretary, and started the Bikes for Books program at the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library and in peninsula schools.

He has held many leadership positions in both the Grand Lodge of Maine and the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. The Grand Lodge of Maine was organized as one of the first pieces of legislation after the formation of the State of Maine in 1820, but the first Lodge in Maine was chartered in what is now Portland in 1762. Locally, Lincoln Lodge in Wiscasset was chartered in 1792 and it supported the formation of Seaside Lodge in Boothbay Harbor in 1867. Bay View Lodge was formed in 1889.

Freemasonry traces its history back to the builder’s guilds in medieval Europe and is open to men of faith, including those of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim religions. Its vision is to enrich lives through education, charity and spiritual growth. It offers courses statewide, and has its annual convocation in Bangor on Oct. 15, 2016, on “Freemasonry: A Revolutionary Brotherhood” that is open to the public; speakers will discuss the role of Freemasonry in the formation of our country, and the importance of its tenets in today’s world. More information on the program may be found at www.MaineMasonicCollege.org.

A significant vehicle for enriching lives is the Masonic Charitable Foundation. The Foundation and local Lodges, including both Bay View and Seaside lodges that meet in East Boothbay, work with local schools and libraries to encourage schoolchildren to develop positive reading habits through the very popular Bikes for Books program. At a cost of over $100,000, some 2,500 bikes were distributed this year to book readers. Maine Department of Education statistics show material improvement in student reading scores where the Bikes for Books program is welcomed into the local schools.

The Foundation provides Project Graduation grants to high schools like the Boothbay Region High School that offer chemical-free graduation celebrations. It also financially supports the Young Maine Volunteer Roll of Honor, which is part of the Governor's Awards for Service and Volunteerism initiative. Maine Masons are presently working with the Maine Department of Education to hopefully begin offering the Masonic Model Student Assistance Program to Maine school districts at no cost to the local schools. MMSAP is an intensive workshop for educators to learn how to identify, intervene with, and create appropriate referrals for students that may be at risk for substance abuse, depression, suicide or violence. This workshop trains a Core Team of five to eight educators and support personnel from a school building in how to intervene early and effectively with students that display patterns of behaviors that threaten their success at school and in life.