This is a great story behind the famous picture of the Shriner holding a little girl and carrying her crutches.
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They stand like sentries protecting the physically challenged and needy children of Louisville — statues of a fez-wearing figure holding a child in one arm and crutches in the other — in front of Ronald McDonald House, Home of the Innocents, Brooklawn Youth Services, Kosair Shrine Temple and five other locations.
But few who see the monuments here, and at Masonic centers across the country, know they depict a Shriner's kindness 40 years ago to an Evansville, Ind., girl named Bobbi Jo Wright, who was struggling to walk on crutches.
“It still seems unreal,” said Wright of the statues, the iconic symbol of Shriners Hospitals for Children health care system (and also reproduced as stained-glass windows, mosaics, lapel pins and tattoos). “I have been privileged to attend many statue dedications, and until he passed away, in December 2009, I also kept in touch with Al Hortman, the man who saw I was having trouble and picked me up and carried me.”
Wright, who was born with cerebral palsy and who as a child underwent many surgeries at the St. Louis facility of the Shriners Hospitals, is being honored Saturday at the Galt House Hotel & Suites when Kosair Charities, the funding arm of Kosair Shrine Temple, announces $20 million in grants for 2010-11.
“More than 80 organizations will benefit,” said Randy Coe, Kosair Charities president. “Our keynote speaker is Dr. Penny Heaton, a former Kosair Charities fellow instrumental in developing the vaccine for rotavirus, which kills more than 500,000 children every year worldwide. And Bobbi Jo is being recognized as the child in the statue that has become the national symbol of Shriners helping children.”
READ MORE The true story behind Shriners' statues | courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal
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They stand like sentries protecting the physically challenged and needy children of Louisville — statues of a fez-wearing figure holding a child in one arm and crutches in the other — in front of Ronald McDonald House, Home of the Innocents, Brooklawn Youth Services, Kosair Shrine Temple and five other locations.
But few who see the monuments here, and at Masonic centers across the country, know they depict a Shriner's kindness 40 years ago to an Evansville, Ind., girl named Bobbi Jo Wright, who was struggling to walk on crutches.
“It still seems unreal,” said Wright of the statues, the iconic symbol of Shriners Hospitals for Children health care system (and also reproduced as stained-glass windows, mosaics, lapel pins and tattoos). “I have been privileged to attend many statue dedications, and until he passed away, in December 2009, I also kept in touch with Al Hortman, the man who saw I was having trouble and picked me up and carried me.”
Wright, who was born with cerebral palsy and who as a child underwent many surgeries at the St. Louis facility of the Shriners Hospitals, is being honored Saturday at the Galt House Hotel & Suites when Kosair Charities, the funding arm of Kosair Shrine Temple, announces $20 million in grants for 2010-11.
“More than 80 organizations will benefit,” said Randy Coe, Kosair Charities president. “Our keynote speaker is Dr. Penny Heaton, a former Kosair Charities fellow instrumental in developing the vaccine for rotavirus, which kills more than 500,000 children every year worldwide. And Bobbi Jo is being recognized as the child in the statue that has become the national symbol of Shriners helping children.”
READ MORE The true story behind Shriners' statues | courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal