The Exchange Club was founded in 1911 in Detroit, Michigan by a businessman named Charles Berkey. Through the years it has grown to more than 30,000 members nationwide.  The Exchange Club is made up of business and professional men and women who dedicate their efforts to meeting needs in the community.  The Exchange Club functions in four areas:

First, Community Service:  The Exchange Club performs programs such as crime prevention, fire prevention, safety, and a project that we call the Book of Golden Deeds.  This is where a member of the community is honored for the good deeds that that person has performed.

Second, the Exchange Club serves youths:  In that regard they provide scholarships, reading programs in the schools, and numerous other projects and programs to benefit children.

Third is an initiative that we have adopted as our national project, Child Abuse Prevention:  In that regard, The Exchange Club has established more than one hundred centers across the country.  These centers are staffed by trained volunteers who work with families in risk of child abuse, so that they can break the cycle.  It has been found that most child abusers where themselves once abused.  And so, our hope is to break the chain of abuse.  Also, the Exchange Club has formed the blue ribbon campaign.  Many of us wear blue ribbons to promote awareness of the problems regarding child abuse.

And fourth, we promote Americanism:  By this I mean pride in America, not elitism.  Programs that we have in that regard would include the “Giveakidaflagtowave” program.  Any of you who have attended our local Salem Christmas Parade will recall some people handing out small American flags.  That is our project.  Last year the Salem Exchange Club replaced all of the classroom flags at the high school.  In this past year we erected a new flagpole at the Dr. Lewis Soule school, since the one they had was badly rusted.  We also have a program called the “Milestones of Freedom” and Mrs. Breen will be addressing that program later today.

And finally we have the “Freedom Shrine.”  For nearly all of us the precious gift of freedom has come free of charge.  But for others, there has been a price.  Perhaps you know someone who has paid or is paying for our freedom-A soldier, sailor, marine, airman or a guardsman.  The men and women in our armed forces are one example of how some people dedicate a part of their lives to protect our freedom.  In the years passed, others have also paid a high price.  Thousands of Americans sacrificed all they had, their homes, property, and lives- all in the pursuit of human freedom.

That is one of the reasons why the Exchange Clubs of America decided nearly fifty years ago to assemble what we call the Freedom Shrine.  We organized the effort, so that Americans, especially young Americans to whom freedom comes automatically, could see for themselves how freedom was purchased for us.  Our freedom was earned at great cost by thousands and thousands of people over a span of hundreds of years.

That is why Exchangites think the Freedom Shrine is much more than just documents hanging in neat rows.  If you look hard at those documents, study them, understand them, and use your imagination, those Freedom Shrine plaques become transparent.  They magically turn into wondrous windows through which you can see back through the centuries, deep into our Nations past.

Exchange Clubs are proud of the Freedom Shrine.  We hope you will be too.  This Shrine is one of thousands which exist all across America.  All of them tell the same exciting story of freedom by presenting some of America's great landmarks.  Deeds which have made freedom a reality in our lifetime.  But the Freedom Shrine documents represent only part of the epic.  For just as freedom is one of the most sought after of human possessions, it is also among the most fragile.  Yes, freedom is fragile.  Which is why, we who enjoy freedom must forever guard and protect it.

We hope you will take the time to not only read the Constitution and the other Freedom Shrine documents, but we encourage you to go to the library and read the great stories behind each of the documents.  We also encourage you to visit the Salem Exchange Club sponsored web site at www.freedomshrine.com.

Yours in Exchange,
 
 

Andrew C. Marion,
Project Chair