Mercy gala to benefit athletic programs

Every year, proceeds from the Capture the Sprit Gala, Mercy Health Center's premier fund raiser event, go towards providing new equipment or more extensive health care services for the community. This year, the money raised at the 17th annual event will go toward helping out the community's young athletes, both in school programs and in community recreational programs.

The recreational leagues that operate through Buck Run Community Center will be a major beneficiary. Through gala funding, each recreational team will be provided a first-aid kit, which will be checked out through Buck Run. The kit, which comes with a water cooler, would be checked back in at the end of season and will be restocked by Mercy. The kit also comes with a booklet with tips and techniques that will help prevent injuries. Mercy Vice President of Customer Relations Eric Ammons said close to 70 first-aid kits would be available for check-out at one time. Ammons said the kits are vital to ensure the safety of the athletes.

Recreational coordinator Tom Robertson said he is excited about the new kits.

"We've had first-aid kits here at the facility," he said, "but we haven't had the funds to provide them for each coach. This will open up a lot of opportunities for the coaches and also the children."

In addition to the first-aid kits, Mercy is working with Buck Run to prepare an educational program for the parents who become coaches of the recreational teams. In the program, an athletic trainer from Mercy would teach the parent-coaches certain tips and techniques to help care for and prevent injuries.

"This way, they'll be equipped with knowledge of what to do," Ammons said.

Also benefiting from this year's gala is the intramural program at Fort Scott Middle School. The intramural program allows students to compete in athletic events against their own schoolmates, instead of competing against other schools. Ammons said this another area where the athletes can benefit from working with an athletic trainer.

To fill that need, Mercy's athletic trainer will now visit the intramural program once or twice a week to talk to players and coaches about any minor or major injuries that occur. The trainer will also provide tips on how to maintain and prevent injuries within the program. Tom Davis, intramural program director, said such coverage for the intramural athletes is something that has been missing.

"Safety is always a major concern in all athletics," Davis said. "We're very confident now that we can have someone to call. That's just something we've never been able to fund. It's good to have a professional that will come look at the needs of our athletes."

Principal Barbara Albright said she agrees.

"It's a very great benefit to our young athletes and our intramural program," she said.

At the high school level, Mercy will now provide a structured educational program for the student athletic trainers. Ammons said the program will provide the student trainers with increased knowledge and education on how to take care of minor injuries.

"It will give them tools to help make them more of a value on the sidelines and during practice when no one is actually around to help take care of those things," Ammons said.

Ammons added that the program will not make the students professional athletic trainers, but it may lead them down that path in the future.

"Who knows, we might have so many people get excited about health care, that we may start encouraging those people to become out future doctors and nurses in our community," Ammons said.

Other equipment that will be purchased through gala funds will be an automated external defibrillator (AED) and a StormHawk, a severe weather tracking device. Each tool will be housed in the athletic trainer's vehicle, Ammons said.

An AED is a portable electronic device that diagnoses and treats cardiac arrest by re-establishing an effective heart rhythm.

The StormHawk is a hand-held device that gives live radar, lightning detection, temperature, heat index and severe weather warnings. Ammons said the detection of lightning strike locations and where they are heading is an important tool during outdoor athletic seasons.

"This will give us a specific way to address where those lightning strikes are in relationship to our athletic event and what time we need to be calling those off and getting people to safety," Ammons said.

Carla Bryant Farmer, Mercy director of development, said all the services provided through gala funding will be free of charge to the community.

"It's a community service being provided at no charge to the family," she said. "It will be given back totally free to the community."

Ammons said he is pleased that Mercy will now be able to provide an even better service to the community's youth than the hospital has been able to provide in the past.

"There are a large number of kids in the community that it would be really nice to give something back to them and try to help them out as well," he said.

The 17th annual Capture the Spirit Gala will take place beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26 adjacent to Mercy Lake, next to the Great West Health Care Building on the Mercy campus, 401 Woodland Hills Blvd.