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Show 7 madi This Community Refused to Be Beaten By Setbacks in Its Drive for a Hospital The people of Alexander County, North Carolina, had it in their mind that their community needed a hospital, and needed it badly. We learned last tceek how they laid their plans, sought and received llie promise of state and federal assistance in the project, then worked their hearts out for A FEATURE the next nine months to raise the $40,000 which they thought would cover their share of the hospital costs. They achieved t h e $40,000 goal which ivas enough money to put up the building. Then, to their dismay, they learned that they needed another $17,000 a vast sum ivhen added to the original $40,000 .ivhich they very nearly had scraped the barrel to procure. Someone snssested. that, n Health Council might help them finish the job. At that time, Health Councils ivere being proposed throughout North Carolina Caro-lina as a means of crystallizing a state-ivide attack on health problems. Alexander county determined, then and there, to become the first demonstration county to prove the efficacy of the Health Council idea. But a Health Council meant membership. Membership meant people. Not just a few inspired leaders working by " themselves, but the hearts and hands of all the county's citizens, citi-zens, working together. Plans were set for the biggest mass meeting Alexander r county had ever seen. People came from all over the area, all eager to take a siving at the county's health problem, most of them convinced that the establishment of the hospital was the number one task at hand. So this time nearly everybody got in on the money-raising act. The school children sold tickets for a benefit movie. Each member of the women's club took a dollar of her own money and tried to make it grow by investing it in some project proj-ect of her own. The Brownie scouts collected $176 to buy a bassinet for the hospital. One of the doctors organized a scrap drive which teas worth $1,500. But on top of all these efforts, there still ivas needed a "big idea" to put the program over. Ed de Jarnett, a fertilizer ferti-lizer salesman, came up with the ansiver. An auction. Everybody went for that suggestion in a big way, and the arrangements were made. People from all over the county brought items to the courthouse square in Taylorsville, where the auction ivas held. Every store in the community donated, too; and the auction ivas a tremendous success, despite bad tveather. Then came the Victory Barbecue the big event designed to celebrate the final, successful culmination of Alexander county's hospital campaign. Barbecue pits were dug, the fires were laid, 700 pork shoulders were put on to feed the croivd which was growing larger and larger. t But in the meantime, the hospital board of directors ivas meeting in the home of R. S. Ferguson to open the envelopes containing sealed bids on the con- struction of the building. And the men were lost in gloom. For construction con-struction costs had risen since the . money-raising program had been started, and the lowest bid in their hands called for far more money than they had available. After all their work and planning plan-ning and sacrifices they still needed need-ed $23,500. This was what the directors di-rectors would have to tell the coun- r t imrj iff? limiieII Jjm ty people at the Victory barbecue barbe-cue that night. But then they did a brave thing. Ray White, who once had raced death to gel his appendicitis-stricken son to a Jios-pital Jios-pital 40 miles away, broke the news. He told the people that costs had risen and that the current estimates greatly exceeded exceed-ed the money they had raised. "We shouldn't let the contracts," he said. "Well, we're going ahead and let the contracts anynay! Because we've faith in the people of Alexander county. We've proved to ourselves our-selves that we'll raise this money. We've proved that we won't give up." They didn't give up. There's a hospital in Alexander county today, a testament in brick and stone, and a functioning function-ing monument to the spirit of the people who built it. |