The upcoming Jacksonville Rotary 4th of July Parade looks to be inundated with another fraternal group in honor of their current leader, and helping kids.

Tony Moore of Jacksonville currently serves this year as Potentate of Ansar Shrine in Springfield. Moore says he became a Shriner after his son Brock received years of treatment at the Shriners Hospital for Children in St. Louis for a rare bone disease in his hips. He says he joined the Shriners to help pay it forward for others.
“It’s all about helping kids. Shriners has twenty-two hospitals throughout the country. Our oldest son, Brock, was treated there between the ages of five and twenty-one years old. That was the main reason I became a Mason and a Shriner- to give back. We just want every kid to have the same opportunity that Brock had.”
Since joining in 2010, Moore has helped over 100 children get treated at the Shriners Hospital in St. Louis, chairing the Ansar Off-Premises Screening Clinics in the area, to giving children and their parents rides to the hospital for treatment.
Ansar’s jurisdiction, or territory, stretches from the Missouri and Indiana borders, and between Danville and Litchfield, covering most of Central Illinois. Moore says a great many Shriners will be walking the parade route in Jacksonville this Friday.
“In our jurisdiction, there’s forty clubs and units (of Shriners), and since it is my hometown parade, I asked any of them that parades to come to Jacksonville and participate. I don’t know how many will be here ,but I will tell it is probably going to be the most that our 4th of July parade has ever had.”
Moore expects somewhere between 75 and 100 Shriner’s from all over Central Illinois to be here Friday, parading in all forms of transportation such as the “Tin Lizzie” mini-Model T cars, “Ag Corp” tractor club, The Wheels, which are giant sized three wheelers, the Four-Wheel Bar Stool Parade Unit and even an appearance by the Mounted Cowboys on horseback, so long as the weather isn’t too hot for the horses.
Moore says the Shriners are about having fun, but above all else, all about helping kids. “Last year alone, between the St. Louis and Chicago hospitals, we helped a little over three hundred kids get treatment. They will take insurance, but we just want to make sure the family doesn’t have to worry about it; it’s for the rich and poor. They will take insurance if they have already met their deductible, but if you get a patient who can’t afford anything, it’s no cost to the parents.”

Tony and his Wife Dana live and work in Jacksonville. Tony is a member of Harmony Masonic Lodge No. 3, and both he and Dana have been parishioners of the Church of Our Savior for 38 years.
To find out more information about Ansar Shrine and the Shriner’s Children’s Hospitals, go online to ansarshrine.com, or you can call Tony Moore at 217-720-9484.
The Jacksonville 4th of July Parade steps off at 10:00 am on Friday from the Morgan County Fairgrounds. The parade will proceed east along West State Street to Church Street.