Posted on 03/02/2016 7:05:13 AM PST by TigerClaws
St. Jude cited racial concerns in asking Decatur County to change the name of its annual hunt.
For the past 40 years, Decatur County has hosted a hunting event to raise money for the patients at St. Jude Children’s Hospital. So far, it has raised $4.5 million.
Decatur County Mayor Mike Creasy said the hospital is now threatening to turn down the donations unless the county changes the name of the event.
For decades, the event has been known as the Decatur County World’s Largest Coon Hunt.
The Coon Hunt Board told Channel 4 that St. Jude has threatened to disassociate with the event and not accept donations unless Decatur County changes the name to raccoon hunt, citing racial concerns.
“Very disappointed,” Creasy said. “It diminishes our desire to even think of moving forward with St. Jude.”
Creasy and the board agreed to change the event’s name, but St. Jude again asked the county to change the name to raccoon festival, citing animal rights concerns.
“It’s not a festival and it will never be a festival,” Creasy said. “It’s a raccoon hunt and it’s what it’s going to remain.”
St. Jude officials told Channel 4 they never refused donations from the event or the event organizers.
A St. Jude spokesperson issued the following statement:
It is our standard practice to accept donations from a variety of events and people of all walks of life, professions and backgrounds who desire to help support our mission and we will continue to do so. The event committee voted 100 percent to change the name and we support their decision and appreciate the continued desire of the community to help in our work in finding cures and saving children.
“We didn’t do this for the board of directors. We didn’t do it for anyone that’s arguing their point. It’s for the kids, and that’s the reason we wanted to continue our relationship with St. Jude,” Creasy said.
The mayor said the city plans to change all of its signs to now say raccoon. However, the group behind the event is a registered LLC. With six weeks to go before the event, Creasy said they don’t have time to legally change the name.
Read more: http://www.wsmv.com/story/31347645/st-jude-asks-decatur-county-to-change-name-of-annual-benefit-hunt#ixzz41l5313pM
Right, they’re willing to walk away from untold $$$ to help children, “for the children.” Makes perfect sense. :/
But then, I'd be inclined to tell the hospital, 'no, have the courage of your convictions' and see if they actually will give up the 4.5 million.
Change it to Raccoon Hunt? Who’s talking about raccoons?
/sarc
Is Racoon offensive as well?
Oh man, this thing’s gonna get out of hand; I just KNOW it!
Putting St. Jude on a hospital offends me as I am Catholic and St, Jude would be really ticked off in heaven right now. It’s anti-catholic to be so dang ignorant!
St Jude is a great organization, but I'd tell them don't worry about the name...we'll just give the money to the Shriners Hospital for Children.
Good grief. The forest behind the house is full of coon hunters in season Their dogs usually tree a few too. This is just plain stupidity !
Yep, St Jude isn’t the only option for helping sick kids, and I wouldn’t bother with them when they are willing to turn down millions of dollars for kids just because the group which raised won’t succumb to their pc tyranny.
Political Correctness has many down sides.
St. Jude is racist, assuming that the obvious nick-name of an animal has anything to do with race.
And I wouldn’t change the “coon” either-everybody knows that means racoons, look at how they’re already moving the goal posts by wanting “hunt” deleted from the title. That’s what pc tyrants do-look for the next word which they can pretend is “offensive” just so they keep cracking their whip.
I thoroughly agree. The Shriner’s Hospital for Children can use the money and keep the name Coon Hunt. Enough with the PC!
Ha, good point.
Change to the PETA Sustainable Organic Vegetable Growing Contest, and everything will be OK...except no money raised.
Will they ask hunters to not use any guns that are black?
Will the name ‘St. Jude’ be replaced? It just isn’t inclusive enough of all religions on the entire planet.
How about the word ‘hunt’? Very micro-aggressive, probably a dog-whistle, or something.
And then the money. Will they be donating a percentage to the DNC, Sierra Club, and the HRC campaign? If not it’d be waysis.
Oh, and these persons hunting. Probably a bunch of white conservatives. Will they ensure every possible combination of race, gender (insert alphabet here), faith (or no faith), and dietary preference is represented???
Maybe they should just cancel the whole thing.
Yep, them ‘concessions’ to the Left are OH, SO easy to make...just change to their way of thinking. /s
Much easier to say the hunt is what it is, we’ll be MORE than happy to have other recipients step-up.
Read the article...They already did change it to Raccoon.
This is ridiculous.
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