ROCHELLE – The highest elected official in the Loyal Order of the Moose made a stop at the Rochelle Moose Lodge Thursday morning on his trip to different lodges across the country.
Rodney Hammond, the current Supreme Governor of the Loyal Order of the Moose, paid a visit to the Rochelle Moose Lodge while on his way to the Mooseheart Child City and School in Aurora Friday. During his one year term as the Supreme Governor of the Moose it is his duty to travel across the country, attending to his every single state, visiting as many of the Moose lodges as he can.
So far, he has visited approximately 160 lodges in 26 different states.
“The primary responsibility of the Supreme Governor is to travel around the country visiting lodges, spreading the good word about the Moose and helping lodges by giving them new ideas,” explained Hammond. “For my Illinois visit, I started down south and have been making my way up, I had some free time before heading to Mooseheart, so I thought I would stop in and pay a visit.”  
By the end of his travels, he will have visited approximately 300 lodges throughout the country.
Once arriving at the Mooseheart in Aurora, the board of directors will meet which will be followed by a tree lighting ceremony. Mooseheart is a residential childcare facility that aims to provide housing and schooling for children and families in need.
Mooseheart originally started out just for children and widows of former Moose members that had passed away, but has since opened its doors to anyone in need.

“We don’t restrict the Mooseheart to just families of Moose members anymore, we have children as young as toddlers that are taken care of all throughout their lives until high school graduation,” said Hammond.
The kids at Mooseheart live in a family-type setting in a house with family parents and family teachers, everything that a child would need is provided such as food and clothing.
Along with Mooseheart and the many lodges spread throughout the county, the Loyal Order of the Moose also offers housing, both independent and assisted, for senior citizens at its Moosehaven complex in Florida as well as their new Lodgic complexes.
The first ever Lodgic complex recently opened in Champaign, but construction is already underway on several others in Madison, Wisconsin and Louisville, Kentucky. The new lodgic buildings were created to both help raise money that will be used to help fund Mooseheart, as well as serve three separate operations under one roof.
“First is flexible childcare for parents, second is a workplace where people who don’t work in an office or anything can come use equipment to make phone calls or do networking, and finally is a restaurant where anyone including the public can get anything from a small snack to an upscale dinner,” added Hammond.
If the first three Logic buildings receive the response the Moose is hoping for, there could possibly be more built in the future.
Anyone over the age of 21, believes in any kind of higher being and has a current member sponsor is able to join the Moose.