Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb 2019

58 www.ReadMPM.com | www.BestOfMP.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com race, religion, skin color or family income. In 1962, the Shriners set aside $10 million to build three hospitals specializing in the treatment and rehabilitation of children with burns. They chose to build their first pediatric burn hospital on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Today, Calhoun said, Shriners hospitals also focus on orthopedics, cleft palates and spinal cord injuries. He added that Kenny Craven, the first South Carolinian to earn a spot on the Imperial Board, is currently negotiating with the Medical University of South Carolina to establish a pediatric burn unit at the soon-to- be-completed MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. “It would be the only pediatric burn unit on the East Coast,” Calhoun said. “Currently, these kids have to go to Cincinnati for treatment.” Calhoun said there are three shrines in South Carolina – in Greenville, Columbia and the Omar Shrine in the Charleston area, which was established in 1907 in a building on the Charleston peninsula and served around 10,000 members. The parking situation was so bad that people had to be bused in from remote lots for large events. The facility was wiped out by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, so the Shriners purchased and then renovated the current building in Mount Pleasant. For more than a century, the Omar Shrine Temple has served as a venue for various events and a way to help children in need of life-changing medical care. feature