Wow, what an awesome, fun yet humbling event this past Tuesday evening (May 22nd) at the RankenJordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital Therapeutic fishing day! As you know the FATC has decided to help with this event throughout the summer and this was our first “inaugural” event for us. What a blast! Just a little over an hour of our time brought much joy to kids that are going through some rough times in their lives.
A BIG thank you to Jim Craig, our FATC Community Service chairman, who set all of this up with RankenJordan and their staff. We had nine volunteers for this evening (there will be plenty more chances for all FATC) and I truly believe that they enjoyed every minute. A special thanks to Carl Cowles, Sid Aslin, Matt McClure, Kenny Klimes, Ken Fleischman, Tom Kelly, Rudy Dodorico, Steve Iverson and of course, Jim Craig for spending an hour and a half with these young kids.
We met up at a “secret lake” in Forest park (off limits to all fishing -except for RankenJordan) and caught fish on EVERY cast! The screams and excitement by both the kids and our guys was infectious. And we saw fish as long as your arm! But it seemed like the bluegill were the hungriest. The guys made some good “little” friends on this evening – Gus, Bennett, Henry, Saraiya, Zion and more…. Check out the pictures below and Matt got some great shots for an upcoming video with his drone.
Jim Craig summed it up best when he wrote to the volunteers:
“I just wanted to send a quick thank you for coming out last night. You guys were very wonderfully patient, caring, and engaging with the kids. There were lots of smiles on the faces of some kids that did not have a lot to smile about. It’s times like these I can’t help but think of Matthew 25:45, “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Last night, it was about what we did do for the least of these.
Thank you again, and I hope you enjoyed it enough to come to another Ranken-Jordan fishing night. The future dates are June 18, July 2, August 20, Sept 17, and Oct 15.
All the best,”
JRC
We have five more of these therapeutic fishing days this summer – about once a month, so please don’t miss this opportunity to serve. The next couple will be on Monday evenings so come right after work and we’ll all go out afterward to have a fellowship meal together. This time we ate at the new hamburger joint in town – “The Shake Shack”. It was pretty good I might add!
So next time our email goes out asking for help jump on board. You will not regret it!!!
