Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

'Log A Load' For Children

Area loggers and other members of the forestry community will gather at the Nevada County Fairgounds Potlatch building on Thursday, May 30, at 6 p.m. to "carry the load for kids" during a fund raising event for Arkansas Children's Hospital.

The fish fry, sponsored by Potlatch Corporation, is one in a series of events scheduled throughout the state as part of the third annual Log- A-Load-For-Kids campaign.

Loggers and members of the forestry community are invited to participate, as well as others in the area who wish to make a donation.

"Log-A-Load-For-Kids is currently one of the fastest growing programs raising money for hospitals participating in the Children's Miracle Network (CMN)," Jim Cornelius of Potlatch Corporation, coordinator of the event, said.

The program started in 1988 in South Carolina when two loggers offered to contribute their earnings from a load of timber to help children hospitalized in South Carolina's primary critical care facilities for infants and youths.

Today, Log-A-Load-For-Kids is operating in 12 states, primarily in the south.

In Arkansas, this effort is carried out by loggers and other members of the foresty community, who work diligently to raise money to support the personnel, research and equipment needed to save the lives of thousands of Arkansas' children.

In the past two years alone, Arkansas' Log-A-Load-For-Kids program has raised nearly $160,000; all of which remained locally to benefit the hosptial.

Arkansas Children's Hospital, like other CMN hospitals, treats children with all types of afflictions -- cancer, heart and muscular disease, birth defects, cerebral palsy, AIDS and accident victims. The staff and volunteers pride themselves on treating the whole child, rendering service based on need, not the ability to pay.

Through the support of local programs like Log-A-Load-For-Kids and individual donations, CMN hospitals provide an estimated $2.5 billion in charity care each year.

"We are joining efforts of loggers and members of the forestry community throughout the state with the hope that we will help make miracles happen for the kids at Arkansas Children's Hospital," Cornelius said.

In 1995 there were nearly 400 children from Nevada and surrounding counties who were admitted to the hospital, and another several hundred who received some form of outpatient treatment.

"It's amazing how many of us either know the families of these children, or have had one of our own children there ourselves," he said. Cornelius added that the many loggers, foresters, millworkers, manufacturers and others who voluntarily work to raise money through the Log-A-Load-For-Kids program do so based on one belief: "In Arkansas, trees are our most important renewable resource, but our children are by far our most precious resource."

Money raised at the Nevada County event will be included as part of the 1996 Log-A-Load-For-Kids fundraising goal of $125,000, set in January by a statewide planning committee comprised of members of the Arkansas Forestry Association and Arkansas Timber Producers Association, sponsors of the program.

Of the $96,000 raised in the 1995 statewide campaign, $9,160 came from the campaign at Prescott. The campaign runs through June 2, the weekend of the National Children's Miracle Network Telethon, which will be broadcast with live local segments from KTHV-Arkansas 11 in Little Rock.

The Prescott Rotary Club has agreed to help again with the fish fry and will do an excellent job of cooking.

Anyone who wishes to attend the Nevada County fishfry, or would like to make a donation to the Log-A-Load-For-Kids campaign, can contact Cornelius of Potlatch Corporation at (501) 887-2605.