Shriners focus on saving kids
Their 22 hospitals take more than $1.7 million a day to operate.
On hot summer afternoons, members of the Rome Shrine Club can frequently be found at busy highway intersections collecting quarters, nickels and dimes, along with occasional green folding money in their buckets. It’s a labor of love for the men who are raising money to support Shrine hospitals that serve children all over the country.
With 22 hospitals in their network, it’s an expensive proposition. Robert Cash, first vice president of the Rome Shrine Club, said it costs about $1.75 million a day to run the network of hospitals at absolutely no cost to the children or their families.
That is a necessity for folks like Rachel Hight, 21, who sustained critical burns over much of her body in a fire
at her Armuchee home when she was 7 years old. “My lamp didn’t have a lampshade on it and I set it down beside my bed, and I when threw my cover over on the lamp it caught it on fire,” Hight said.
Hight said she’s had too many surgeries to count over the intervening 14 years.
Jerry Collins, chairman of the Rome Shrine hospital committee, said the expenses can be astronomical for burn patients. He estimated Shriners have spent well over $4 million treating Hight over the past 14 years. While the age limit for Shriners to take children in for treatment is 18, they won’t let go of a young person who needs to continue treatments past that age.
Hight said Friday that she has to schedule another surgery with the physicians in Cincinnati sometime during the next week or so.
“They’re keeping an eye on the back of my leg, my nose and I’ve found a new place up under my arm,” Hight said.
Hight is one of about 21 local youth actively being served in either Cincinnati, Ohio, or the orthopedic hospital in Greenville, South Carolina. Collins said over his four decades on the hospital committee well over 200 local youth have been served by the Shriners.
Hight said she calls Collins “pawpaw.” “I like to pick at him,” Hight said. “I pick on them all. They’re all my buddies.”
Today, the youngster who several of the Shriners will admit thought might not make it, is working at the Subway in the Redmond Regional Medical Center alongside her mother Patricia Hight and doing well. “I never lost hope,” Hight said.
Tuesday is International Shrine Awareness Day, but members of the Rome Shrine Club want Northwest Georgians to be aware of a couple of special dates in August. The annual Shriners Telethon on local cable television is set for Aug. 4-6. The Shriners will also have a special night at State Mutual Stadium with the Rome Braves on Aug. 17.
The telethon is a longrunning event that First Vice President Robert Cash says he hopes will generate at least $60,000 this year. The telethon has been moved from the Forum River Center to Georgia Highland College Heritage Hall, East Third Avenue.
The Shriners will take advantage of the auditorium and its extensive stage lighting system to enhance the production this year.
Gary Miller said better parking should encourage more people to come watch the telethon and bid on auction items that Saturday afternoon. He said it will also be less expensive to rent, according to Shriner Gary Miller.
The Shrine Night with the Braves will feature a Shriners parade around the warming track prior to the game. Children who are being treated at either the burn hospital in Cincinnati or the orthopedic hospital in Greenville, South Carolina, will throw out the first pitch. After the first inning the Shriners will pass the bucket and the Rome Braves will match every dollar collected in the buckets.
The fund-raising efforts are critical to the Rome Shrine Club, part of the Yaarab Temple with 57 units across North Georgia. There are nowhere near as many members in the club as there were a couple of decades ago. Bob Mount said when he became a Shriner, Yaarab had a little over 15,000 members. Today, it’s closer to 3,300. Cash said a younger generation is just not taking the interest in the Shrine, much the same way that young veterans are not joining the American Legion.
That means there are far fewer Shriners out at highway intersections on a Saturday morning collecting those coins that the Rome Shrine Club members hope will add up to about $55,000 this year.
They never know when the next Rachel Hight will come along, but want to make sure they’re able to respond the next time they’re called on.