Join Us By Becoming a Member
Meet our 2022 Membership Chair
Jim Wolf P.E.R.
When Jim Wolf joined the Elks five years ago, he made
it his mission to dispel the myth that this was an exclusive
club for white men.
Wolf — a white man — had never imagined that he would be an Elks member himself. But while attending a fundraiser that the lodge hosted for Skinner Middle School, he was invited to apply. “A lot of us parents who are now members came to that school fundraiser,” he recalls. “One of the older members who was bartending that night approached several of us, saying that we should become members. And my wife, being very active in the neighborhood, saw the potential here for the community space. Basically, our wives were like, ‘You should join this.’ So a lot of our friends all joined at one time, and we started going to every barbecue and school fundraiser and said, ‘This place is kind of great, if we just put some love into it.’”
Wolf quickly became a trustee on the lodge’s board of directors. In 2019, he wrote a diversity statement that he proposed adding to the lodge bylaws, clarifying certain misleading aspects of Elkdom. “A question we get asked a lot when we approach women to join is, ‘I thought that was a men’s club.’ We’re really trying hard to dispel that,” he says. “This is not a men’s club; it very much is open to everyone, and that was a really strong push for our diversity statement — to say we’re completely inclusive of everyone — and we’ve got to get this out so we don’t have to keep answering that question.”
The diversity statement, which was officially added to the Denver Elks Lodge 17 bylaws in June, also clarifies that while membership requirements do include a belief in God, people from all religions are welcome to join. “When we say ‘Believe in God,’ the way Denver 17 has approached it is, we don’t define God,” Wolf explains. “It has more to do with the oath we take to uphold the Constitution. It’s like going into court and taking an oath. If you don’t believe in anything, it’s an empty oath. You need to believe in something greater than the self, but we don’t define what your god is.”
All new members are informed that political or religious discussions are not allowed within Elks lodges. “The Elks is a communal space to be free and neutral, and it’s strictly prohibited and discouraged to discuss those things. We want everyone to be able to feel they can come in here, commune with their fellow Elks and their community, and not have all that extracurricular stuff coming in,”
Read more about about our growing our Lodge membership here in a 2021 article published in Westword.
I'm an Elk....
because someone asked me to Join!
How to ask someone to join:
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Go to elks.org
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If you haven’t created a login, do so. You’ll need your member number.
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Next, go to your member home page and scroll down to
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Invite Someone to Join. You will need the first name, last name, email address and how long you have known the person you are proposing.
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Once you hit INVITE, you will receive a confirmation email with you as the proposer.
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Lastly, check with your initiate as this email often ends up in junk box. Note we do not require they have references to join when filling out their application! Be sure to follow up, tell them all about the Elks and our Lodge, and help them get initiated.
https://www.elks.org/members/default.cfm
For over 130 years the Denver Elks lodge has been involved in the local community; from support to our nation's Veterans, scholarships to local youth or quarterly fundraising events there is always a reason to join and get involved