MEMBER ON A MISSION (to help)

One of the lodge members was friends with Brendan. He knew Brendan had a background in crisis psychology and had done quite a bit of volunteer work. Brendan immediately assembled a “behavioral emergency support team” to provide mental health counseling to the grieving brothers.

“The team came out twice to work with us, and it was extremely helpful,” Stanley said. “Being the head of the lodge at that time and having that [accident] happen, I felt guilty. The meeting had run a little long that night, and I felt like it was my fault. It’s my job, in my mind, to make sure my members get home safely, even though I have no control over it.”

Association for Suicidology.

Brendan remembers providing support at one of the COVID-19 response headquarters in Delaware County. It was a place where first responders who were exposed to the virus could go and be safe, monitored and provided with food and mental health support while they waited out their quarantine periods.

Back in February 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Brother Stanley R. Pannella, P.M., Concordia Lodge No. 67, Jenkintown, was wrapping up a stated evening lodge meeting as then-Master.

“We had a marvelous presentation, and after the meeting was over, one of our members started to head out,” Stanley said. “He crossed Route 611 [Old York Road] and was hit by two cars going in different directions. The second car dragged him back near the lodge, and the driver backed up and drove away. We all jumped in to help, but he [the brother] was dead on site.”

Following the incident, Stanley grappled with what to do next and how to help his members cope with a range of emotions. That’s when Brother Brendan Hickey, Ph.D., was asked to step in.

Brendan and his response team worked with about 30 brothers, separating them into small groups, asking questions and talking them through their emotions.

“It did me a lot of good,” Stanley said. “I know it did a lot of other brothers a lot of good. That was more important to me than myself.”

A Past Master of Thompson Lodge No. 340, Paoli, Brendan is a school psychologist, evaluating and supporting students with special needs. He serves with the Delaware County (PA) Medical Reserve Corps and Citizens Corps and with the State of Delaware Medical Reserve Corps and Behavioral Emergency Support Team. He is also an accredited school suicide prevention specialist through the American

“That was my whole world for the first couple of months [of the pandemic]. We understood the job and the risk we were taking, but this was never supposed to be a risk we could take home and kill our families with,” Brendan said. “Those were some scary days. Science was evolving, and we had to constantly change procedures.”

Brendan also counseled children with special needs at a charter school in Chester.

“I was pretty sure I was going to get COVID eventually, but it’s important to help people in need,” he said. “People need help, so you take the chance. You try not to think about it too much.”

When the supermarkets began to close during the pandemic, Brendan volunteered at food distribution sites in Delaware. He provided mental health services for people driving up in cars to get food.

“Some of these people never thought they’d need government support to get food, so they were pretty upset,” he said. “I was supporting those folks, as well as the volunteers.”

During Hurricane Katrina, Brendan traveled with the Red Cross as part of a group of volunteers, mostly stationed in Mobile, Alabama.

“I spent a couple days at a shelter before heading to the Mobile Civic Center, where we were facing off against riot conditions,” he said.

Although his work can be draining, Brendan enjoys being useful to people, some of whom are having “the worst days of their life,” he said.

“I get to come in there, and I know some stuff that will help them,” he said. “That’s the exciting part and the best part about it. I don’t want fires or floods to happen, nobody does, but you get someone who loses everything in a tornado, and you’re able to be useful to that person – that’s worth doing and getting excited about. You’re running on all cylinders.”

Brendan has always been interested in disaster response. After the 9-11 attacks, he wanted to help any way he could, but he didn’t have all the necessary credentials. Four years later, he was ready to go.

“All of my supervisors during Katrina had been front line service workers on 9-11,” he said. “A lot of training and procedures that were put into place during Katrina were created during 9-11. From Katrina, we saw the development of the Medical Reserve Corps program units.”

These units were federally sponsored but operated by states or counties. They included medical professionals who were trained in disaster response. Brendan served in both Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Brendan has been a Mason for 10 years. He’s also a Masonic scholar, a Hauts Graves Scholar through the Scottish Rite and a published Masonic author. He gave a lecture last year, “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories,” for the Masonic Library and Museum Speaker Series in Philadelphia and returned in July with a presentation on “Courage as a Core Value of Freemasonry.”

“For me, being a Mason is the chance to hang out with really cool guys and to keep learning,” he said. “Being a Mason helps me be the person that I want to be. There’s a code – a set of responsibilities – that makes a lot of sense to me. I find those obligations strengthen the expectations I have for myself. A Freemason is a leader in his community and his life. And that’s what I’m always trying to be.”