Date of issue: September 19, 2001
Printer: Canadian Bank Note Company
Design: Monique Dufour and Sophie Lafortune; photography by François LeClair
The Shriners Hospitals for Children
Shriners International is a Masonic society founded in 1872 whose goals include fellowship, promotion of family life, and philanthropy. In the early 1920s, the group decided to make the care of children with orthopedic disease their principal charitable endeavor. Their first hospital dedicated to this opened in Louisiana in 1922. Initially, it was concerned primarily with polio, which had reached epidemic proportion at the time. Over the years, the organization has begun additional programs dedicated to the care of children with burns, spinal cord injury, and cleft palate.
The Shriners has developed into one of the largest and best-known international fraternities, with over 600,000 members in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central/South America. A Montreal based Shriners Hospital – the only one to be located in Canada – opened in 1925 with a 60-bed capacity. It recently moved to a new site adjacent to the McGill University Health Center, continuing its commitment to research as well as patient care.
The Stamp
The stamp shows a child and a Shriner’s clown, traditionally employed for both fundraising and therapy. Both are looking up at a “floating” pair of crutches, suggesting that they are no longer necessary and that the boy has been cured. A similar theme is seen on the first-day cover, a young girl being carried – supported by – a fez-wearing member of the Shriners. The first-day postmark shows the Shriner’s emblem.
