Our History
The recently created...
Latin American Shrine Association (LASA) first met in Panama City, Panama in Feb 2020 and received its charter during the virtual Imperial Session in July 2020, under the Leadership of Imperial Sir Jeff Sowder and became the first new Shrine Association in the last 50 years.
Latin America continues to be one of the fastest membership growth regions for Shriners International, as most of its Temples have been consistently earning Gold Awards for membership.
The sheer size of the region represents a huge challenge, as the activities that you would expect to see during an Association Anual meeting will be limited by the cost associated to air travel and complicated logistics.
However, the potential for membership growth is big and considering that the largest amount of international patients traveling to our Shriners Hospitals are from Latin America, the overall Nobility would maintain the incentive to work to for their Temples and Clubs, in order to sustain the philantophic effort.
LASA's focus will certainly be directed at fun and fellowship within our member Temples and Clubs, but it will also devote an important effort to education on membership, donor development and hospital coordinations to take care of our little patients.