Liberty · Truth · Justice · Equality
The Fraternal Order of Eagles is a charitable organisation whose motto is People Helping People. Aerie #281 is its Racine chapter, at Main and Hamilton, and it is two bodies working together: the Aerie and the Auxiliary.
What a fraternal club is for
A fraternal order has something most charities do not: a building. That changes the method entirely. Our fundraising is a dinner - members cook, neighbours come and eat, and the proceeds go to a named cause. The social life and the charity are the same evening.
That is why this site has a calendar rather than a donate button. If you want to help Aerie #281, the most useful thing you can do is turn up hungry on the right Saturday.
The order behind the aerie
Figures from the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Where the money goes
Provides medical and educational benefits to the children of members who lose their lives while serving their country, or while at work. It was created for the children of members lost in the Second World War.
Source: Fraternal Order of Eagles
A $25 million research centre at the University of Iowa, funded by Eagles across the United States and Canada and opened in 2014. One of its physicians recently won a prestigious award for research focusing on women's cardiometabolic health.
Source: University of Iowa
The umbrella for the funds our dinners raise money for: Spinal Cord Injury, Kidney, Diabetes, Heart, Cancer, Children's, Eagle Village and the Golden Eagle Fund. Each has a dinner against its name on our calendar.
Source: Fraternal Order of Eagles
A fund we support
Terrance Sund died in Vietnam in 1967, and for decades there was no headstone or marker memorialising his short life. The Menomonee Falls native drowned in a Viet Cong tunnel on 6 December 1967. He was 20 years old. His remains were returned to Wisconsin the following month and rested at Wisconsin Memorial Park Cemetery in Brookfield until 2015.
Steve Conto, a Navy veteran and a member of the American Legion, took action. From his efforts the Terrance Sund Memorial Fund was developed within the Wisconsin American Legion, and Steve worked with the WDVA to identify cremated veteran remains, verify veteran status, and see that those veterans got a proper burial. Steve passed away in 2011 and the fund carries on.
It pays the cremation and burial costs of Wisconsin veterans who have no next of kin, so that every one of them is given the military burial they earned. The fund sits under the Wisconsin American Legion Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation, Federal Tax ID 26-1582528.
Where we came from
Six theatre owners met in a Seattle shipyard in February 1898 to discuss a musicians’ strike, and founded the Fraternal Order of Eagles. It grew into an international order of nearly 800,000 members, and adopted the motto Liberty, Truth, Justice and Equality.
Source: Fraternal Order of Eagles
Aerie numbers were issued in the order chapters were chartered, and the order now has more than 1,500 locations. Ours is 281, which puts Racine among the early ones - the Aerie and the Auxiliary have shared this building for generations.
Every year the hall fills with music for the Thoughts for Food benefit, which raises money for the Racine County Food Bank. It is one of the longest-running dates on our calendar.
Source: The Journal Times
Quarterly, since 2026
The Racine 281 Aerie and Auxiliary Newsletter is published four times a year. It carries the dinner dates, the meeting times, notes from both Presidents and news from the funds we support.
Members receive it directly. Past issues will be collected here as an archive, so anybody can look back at what the club has cooked, raised and hosted.
2026-2027
| Office | Aerie | Auxiliary |
|---|---|---|
| Jr. Past President | Gerry Simon | Joan Simon |
| President | Adam Clouthier | Elizabeth Felski |
| Vice-President | Nate Felske | Karli Witkowiak |
| Chaplain | Tim Thiery | Karen Thiery |
| Conductor | Doug Briggs | Mary Genich |
| Secretary | Kai Genich | Cheryl Johnson |
| Treasurer | Joe Witkowiak | Diana Lang |
| Inside Guard | Erv Green | Tara Hay |
| Trustees | Richard Fortier, Ed Fortier, Edward DeLaCruz, Christie Amort, Sherry Gibson | |
On the block
Hamilton Street closes for the car show, the Fourth of July brings a parade and the bar and kitchen open to the public for it, and the Zone Conference brings aeries from across the eastern zone into the building for a weekend. A club with two halls ends up hosting the neighbourhood whether it plans to or not.
The emblem
Those four words ring the Eagles seal, and they are the ones on the sign outside and painted on the wall inside. The bald eagle on the mural in the lower hall is the club's own, painted above the ramp, and it has watched a great many buffet lines go past.
The easiest introduction is a meal. Fish fry on Friday from 4pm, breakfast on Sunday from 8am, and nobody will ask whether you are a member.