Alabama Shrine Club to Be Sold to Cover Shortfall

A Shrine club in Decatur, Ala., will be sold to raise $119,000 that was intended for the Shriners Hospitals but instead went to pay the club’s bills, reports The New York Times.

Shrine rules state that all money raised for charity must be directed toward the hospitals, but an audit conducted by the Shriners’ national headquarters has found that over the past three years, the club donated only part of the money it raised through bingo games.

Robert Utley, potentate of Cahaba Temple in nearby Huntsville, says he has no choice but to sell the club.

The Decatur club has hosted a bingo game every week for almost 10 years and says that it has been donating 51 percent of the proceeds to the hospitals, with the rest covering maintenance costs.

Eric C. Terry, the club’s president, says there has been no wrongdoing during his tenure. He said, “They think somebody was taking money, and I can’t say what’s happened over the last two years because I wasn’t president then,” he said. “But everything this year is accounted for. I know it.”

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