Editor's Note
The Knights and the Story Behind the Tootsie Rolls
You’ve probably encountered them more than once: Knights of Columbus, on the sidewalk outside your local supermarket, offering Tootsie Rolls and asking for donations to help developmentally disabled children. A few weeks ago I had a chance to see one example of the good those donations accomplish, and to meet the man who started this program in North Carolina.
I visited the Durham Child Development & Behavioral Health Clinic, a division of Duke Children’s Hospital, at the invitation of Dr. Ave Lachiewicz, who works with children affected by Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic disorder which results in mild to severe physical, intellectual, emotional and behavioral symptoms. On the day I visited, the Knights of Columbus were presenting $8500 to the clinic for the treatment of these children, several of whom were there with their families. The Knights are one of the major charitable supports for the clinic, thanks to former State Deputy Bill Scott, who learned about Fragile X decades ago when he realized his two sons were both affected by the syndrome.
Today Bill is in his 80s, but his enthusiasm for helping these children is undimmed. It was 1969 when he started a program with the Knights which he christened LAMB, an acronym for Least Among My Brothers, to raise funds for, in the parlance of the time, “mentally retarded children.” The LAMB Foundation’s first Tootsie Roll drive was in 1974. “We raised $31,000,” Bill recalls. Today, according to K of C State Deputy John Gouldie, the program raises almost a million dollars a year to assist developmentally disabled children throughout the state. Since the program started, the Knights have distributed over $17.4 million to hundreds of agencies across the state.
At the Durham Clinic, now nationally renowned for its work with Fragile X patients, donations from the Knights fund a variety of needs. “A blood test to diagnose Fragile X was available in the early ‘90s,” Dr. Lachiewicz says, “but insurance companies have been slow to allow coverage. Donations like this make it possible to offer the test to families whose insurance won’t cover it.” Fragile X is not curable. Treatment involves long term speech and physical therapy, and funding helps provide tools such as weighted pens and flash cards, stencils for forming letters and talking puzzles.
The next time I see the Knights with their Tootsie Rolls, I’m going to recall my visit to the clinic, and think about compassion. The compassion of the professionals who work with these children and their courageous parents, and especially the compassion of a man who saw in his own family’s misfortune a mandate to help others.
You can write me at 715 Nazareth Street, Raleigh, NC 27606 or
reece@raldioc.org.