"We're surrounded on nearly all sides by Sunnyvale," says Robert Heslop, district deputy grandmaster for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a group that traces its origins back to 18th century England. Middle class citizens there who dared to help their less fortunate brethren in the fields were uncommon, and therefore, odd. This tradition of community service continued through the founding of the Odd Fellowship in Baltimore in 1819. And in Cupertino, that tradition is apparently historical enough to dictate city limits.

In addition to helping out in the community and serving as a long-standing institution—its mailing address is the sixth post office box in the city—Cupertino Odd Fellow Lodge No. 70 is also helping prepare boys in the area for leadership roles and public speaking. At a Sept. 20 general interest meeting, the lodge will recruit new members for the recently reactivated King's Men Junior Odd Fellow Lodge, becoming the only lodge in its five-lodge district to host the program.

"It teaches the boys leadership. The Junior Lodge meetings are very formal, and the boys have to do these themselves," says Don Lang, a member of the Cupertino lodge who is a past grandmaster for the Grand Lodge of California. The program accepts boys between the ages of 8 and 18, and the group meets every two weeks. Activities range from recreation with fellow members to pitching in with the larger lodge's activities to traveling throughout the state to meet with other Junior Odd Fellows, which often involves youngsters from each lodge speaking in front of receptions of several hundred people.

"I've already noticed a change in my son," says Robert Heslop, district deputy grandmaster and an adviser along with Lang for the boys' group. "Adults are there, but kids are running the whole thing. He's finding it a lot easier to speak now."

The Junior Odd Fellow program was on hiatus for a few years, after a large number of former participants graduated from high school with few younger members ready to take their places. Cupertino became the host lodge for the district, which includes groups in Campbell and Saratoga, because interested advisers, like Heslop, lived close by.

Theta Rho, the girls' version of the King's Men Junior Odd Fellow Lodge, meets at the Odd Fellows' Santa Clara location. Dues are about $7 a year, which Heslop compares to the thousands of dollars that other extracurricular activities can require.

The boys will assist in their host's lodge activities as well, which range from sponsoring youth camps to hosting a home for abused children to raising money for medical research. "It's all to elevate the character of man, to be better off than you were," Lang says. "Our three links represent friendship, love and truth." While many of the Odd Fellows' projects are long term, many address the more immediate concerns of lodge members.

"When my wife was sick, the lodge was there. The doorbell's always ringing, and there's always someone asking, 'What can we do to help?'" Heslop says. "When we hear someone's family could use some help, we're over there taking out the garbage."

The Odd Fellows Cupertino lodge, located off of Homestead Road, also hosts two separate lodges of Rebekahs—the female version of the Odd Fellows. The Sunnyvale Rebekah Lodge meets there, as well as the Philotesian Rebekah Lodge, which is headquartered in Cupertino. The Sunnyvale Odd Fellows lodge was long ago consolidated with the Cupertino lodge, which makes for a large number of philanthropists tied together by one location.

But in general, membership in organizations like the Odd Fellows has fallen over the years. Odd Fellows pride themselves on taking care of members after retirement—one such living community is located in Saratoga—but since the incorporation of Social Security and other government benefits in the 1940s, membership has gone from approximately 50,000 to 5,500 in California. "All organizations have been losing members, but when I was grandmaster in 2003, that was a year of positive gain," Lang says. "We only lost 40 members in the whole state last year."

There are still enough Odd Fellows in Cupertino to fill the Donut Wheel every Wednesday morning, and Heslop, who became an Odd Fellow in 1999, routinely meets members who have belonged for decades. "I'll see someone who says they've been in it for 50 years, but they were also in Junior Odd Fellows, so it's really 60 years," he says. Heslop estimates that about 30 to 40 percent of junior lodge members stay on to become full-fledged Odd Fellows.

Even now, 105 years after it was first established, the Cupertino Odd Fellows Lodge continues to carve out its own spot—and pass its influence down to another generation.

The informational meeting for Junior Odd Fellows is on Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Odd Fellow Hall, 20589 Homestead Road. For more information, call 408.257.8474 or visit www.cupertino ioof70.org.