In his report to the St. Croix Valley Shriners Board of Directors on Monday, April 5, Bob Hering of the Shriners Children's Board of Governors told the Nobles assembled that Shriner's Children's Twin Cities (TCC) continues to be heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The pandemic has caused an unprecedented disruption to normal operating procedures,' Hering said. 'Historically, 89 percent of the TCC patient population comes from outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area with 71 percent of the patient_population outside of Minnesota.'

At the time of his report, it will be more than one year since the SCV Shrine Club has visited an outreach location at the provider clinic.

'The inability to reach these patients in our seven-state catchment area is of great concern,' said Hering.

Contributing factors are many patients’ inability to travel and the business travel restrictions in place to protect associates and patients.

Outreach and telehealth updates 'We are waiting for letters that outline plans to return to our Outreach Clinics,' Hering said.

They completed the update with information about Boys Town and Omaha. Completed vaccine process will be required for those SH-TC employees going on outreach. The travel bans remain in effect through the end of the month; however, it may be extended.

Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare

TCC continues to function with most surgery services at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare location. However, some events are not going to be held this year.

'All Twin Cities Child Life camps and programs are canceled until further notice,” Hering said.

The TCC Prom will be pushed back to fall of this year.

Save these dates!

The Gala is set for Sept.10 with one of three options pending.

•An in-person event with a livestream of the program on YouTube. The link could be shared and used after the event to continue to raise funds.

•Totally virtual event.

•Event pushed back until 2022.

The long-awaited open house and groundbreaking ceremony for the Shriners Children's Twin Cities is being planned for Sept. 11, the day after the Gala.

– Merlin Steffen was passed to the degree of Fellowcraft on Tuesday April 6th at the River Falls Masonic Lodge #109. Shown after the ceremony is left to right, front row: Blair Conklin, Bill Reed, Merlin Steffen, Mike Elliott, who presided over the degree, Austin Mahanakee, Martin Kroenig and James Mac Farlane of Collins-Spring Valley Lodge in Baldwin. Second row, left to right is Bob Hering, Logan Schmidt, Doug Hoffman, Dave Vold, Bob Fisher, Jim Wolfe, Dean Monroe, Scott McBeath and Fred Benson. Photo by Milt Helmer