Shriners sell 2,000-plus fish plates
Apr. 22—ELIZABETHTOWN — The Bladen County Shriners Club baited the community with its annual spring fish fry on Wednesday, and area residents took that bait hook, line and sinker as more than 2,000 plates were sold during the day-long event.
"We're very happy with how things went," said Phillip Little, chairman of the fundraiser. "It's a lot of work, but it's always such a success. It looks like we brought in about $12,000 after expenses, which is pretty good."
He added that, along with the plate sales, the club received a number of donations.
"Those are always helpful," Little said. "I even had a woman, probably in her 70s, give me a donation and tell me that she is walking only because of what Shriners Hospital in Greenville did for her many years ago. As a child, she had club feet and they did surgeries that corrected that.
"Stories like that make what we do worth all the effort," he added.
The money raised during the spring fish fry, minus expenses for the event, will be put toward the club's annual October fish fry. Little said that event is always bigger.
"We really make a big deal out of that one, because everything we raise — 100% — goes to the national Sudan Club for use in their hospitals to help with children," he said.
At one time, the Shriners Club had two sites going for its October fundraiser — Elizabethtown and Bladenboro — but the Bladenboro site wasn't set up in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic.
"Interestingly enough, the Elizabethtown site did almost as much last year as the two sites combined in previous years," Little said. "But right now, we're not sure if we'll have the Bladenboro site in October — we'll wait and see how things are first."
In 2021, the local October fundraiser brought in more than $12,000 for the Shriners hospitals.
But Little said it's getting to be more challenging to keep profits up because the cost of everything is going up quickly.
"That's really cut into the profit margin," he said. "We haven't increased the cost of our plates in a while, but we may need to talk about that for the October event."
Little added that the community and corporate support the club receives for its fish fry events have been a blessing.
"People seem to look forward to our fish frys," he said. "And our corporate support ... really helps us a lot."
Little was also appreciative of the cadets from Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy.
"We simply couldn't do it without them," he said. "Those kids do a really good job and we're so thankful for their help and energy throughout the day."
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-862-4163 or cvincent@bladenjournal.com.
