The Grand Lodge of New Jersey

An Important Announcement

My Brothers,

The following announcement is truly far-reaching and heralds the dawning of a new era in the proud history of The Masonic Charity Foundation of New Jersey. It positions the Foundation to return to the path of financial stability, even during these turbulent economic times, and will allow us every opportunity to keep our Home open doing its good works.

A great deal has been accomplished since I distributed the February 9th update. After five months of careful and extensive research, the committee reports on Business Continuity, Strategic Alliance and Contingency Planning have been finalized, as has the Executive Committee's recommendation.

After many weeks of on-site analysis, on February 24th 2009 the executive team from Presbyterian Home Services delivered their Phase II report to the Board of Trustees. This report outlined several substantial opportunities to promote new revenues and to further contain expenses. These changes will dramatically reduce our deficit.

I am pleased to announce that The Masonic Charity Foundation of New Jersey and PHS Senior Living, with the approving authority of your Board of Trustees, has executed a management contract which will greatly accelerate our ability to achieve the opportunities outlined in the report as well as those previously identified by our Committees.

Among the many resources that PHS Senior Living will bring to the table will be a full time on-site Manager. We welcome Mr. Anthony Argondizza, Vice President of Operations from PHS Senior Living, to our management team and wish him well as our Manager. Anthony has twenty years of experience in the industry and has been on-site from time to time since November 2008. This management contract will avail us of the economies that only a significantly larger and successful operator such as PHS Senior Living can offer. We anticipate that we will be able to seize the opportunities already identified and, in addition, we believe further that this engagement will identify additional opportunities as they gain additional experience on-site.

Your Masonic Home's ownership and corporate status, as well as its funds and resources, remain the property of The Masonic Charity Foundation of New Jersey, as it has always been! No assets are being sold. No additional debt is being undertaken and we as a Fraternity and as a Board remain obligated to discharge our fiduciary responsibilities and oversight of the operations. None of this is changing!

Please also be assured of this: it remains the stated and time-honored goal of the Foundation TO PROVE WE CARE every day. Our Residents will continue to enjoy the high quality of care they have come to rely on at our Masonic Home.

Brothers, more than ever, we need your sustaining support; we still need the continued foundation of our employees; we still need the dedication of our volunteers; we still need to remain more than a team, we need to remain a Family. After many years we now find ourselves in the position where the fruits of our love and labors will be rewarded and sustained!

The Board exhaustively evaluated other opportunities and alternatives before arriving at our final determination and we will present a summary of those efforts to you at the Annual Communication. When we completed our internal deliberations and integrated our conclusions with the PHS Senior Living report recommendations, we realized that we have every chance to achieve a break-even operation without sacrificing care. Importantly, we can do this in a very reasonable period of time. Moreover, the payment to PHS Senior Living will be from the savings we achieve together. The payments are programmed such that certain performance goals shall be achieved before full reimbursement is made.

This is an important and profound realization! Making the operations of the Home self-sustaining once again will enable New Jersey Freemasons, through the Foundation, to do even more in the Community; to provide even more educational and scholarship support to tomorrow's Masons and to promote Freemasonry to new, exciting levels. This vision is real, my Brothers. The Board could not have come this far without your trust and support and we can only achieve our new vision with your continued faith and conviction.

Once again, I entreat you to please continue the support which you have always pledged to our Home and in this time of transition, to please consider doing even more to help make this watershed transition as successful and as fruitful as it can possibly be.

Meanwhile, we, the Board of Trustees, will continue to diligently work, now with the decisive addition of the outstanding, proven PHS team, to effect this important transition and, with your help, to guide our Foundation and our Home to new operating excellence! A new day has now dawned and it is time for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the high principles and mission that is The Masonic Charity Foundation of New Jersey- Proud Masons proving that we care every day.

Sincerely and fraternally,
John

John J. Forberger, President
The Masonic Charity Foundation of New Jersey