Ranken
Jordan Pediatric Rehabilitation Center
Serving the youngest patients without regard to pay
By Pam Droog
Near the intersection of Ladue and Spoede Roads in Ladue is
a cozy stone structure tucked into four-and-a-half wooded acres.
It’s not a mansion, but it’s a home and a haven to medically
fragile children, age two weeks to 16 years, who need daily
nursing and rehabilitation services. But, like a lot of other
60-year-old buildings, the place doesn’t work for its inhabitants
the way it used to. As a result, the board of directors of Ranken
Jordan Pediatric Rehabilitation Center, led by board president
Rabbi Mark Shook of Temple Israel, are gearing up for a major
capital campaign to finance a new facility that will better
serve its special clientele.
“In many ways, this was like a country home, out here with the
chickens and the cows,” Rabbi Shook says. “The place has gone
through a number of transformations, while our ability to fight
childhood diseases also has changed. So it’s time for Ranken
to create a new, state-of-the-art facility.”
When it was built in 1940, Ranken Jordan actually was one of
the leading-edge medical facilities for children, who were afflicted
mainly by bone tuberculosis and polio. “When Clay Jordan and
Mary Ranken Jordan founded the agency, they sent pediatricians
all over the U.S. to see what was happening in children’s medical
care and bring back what they had learned,” says executive director
Laura Lambrix. “So I think it’s safe to say Ranken represented
state-of-the-art medical care for children.”
Ranken Jordan can accommodate up to 26 inpatients, and treats
outpatients daily; it also offers home-based services. The average
stay is 28 days. “One of the hallmarks of the Jordans’
original proposal was that all children be served without regard
to payment,” Lambrix says. “That has gotten more difficult
as time has passed.”
However, the 18-member board has risen to the challenge of Ranken
Jordan’s financial and physical constraints. “In the
past, there were no financial worries, because the trust Mary
Ranken Jordan set up generously provided for the needs of the
place,” Rabbi Shook says. “Today, it’s a much
more complex institution and the board has to reflect that complexity.
That requires us to get board members who not only have the
best interests of children in mind, but who also offer expertise
in insurance, medicine, finances, fundraising, education and
more.”
Board members can serve two three-year terms. They’re recommended
by other board members, or recruited through the Friends of
Ranken Jordan, the agency’s 65-member volunteer group. The board,
which meets every other month, soon will increase to 24 members.
Rabbi Shook’s association with Ranken Jordan began in 1995,
but being next-door, Temple Israel has had a relationship with
the agency for nearly four decades. “It’s been very informal,
nothing in writing or stone,” the Rabbi says. “We share parking
lots. But we thought there ought to be a more lasting relationship.”
The irony, he notes, is that “the geographic proximity will
be coming to an end, because now it’s very likely Ranken Jordan
will move to the city of St. Louis.”
Nothing’s finalized yet, Lambrix says. “We’re looking at several
different sites.” She and the board believe relocating to the
city would be “an extraordinary opportunity to be near our two
major referral sources,” St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Cardinal
Glennon Hospital for Children. Also, she notes, several Ranken
clients come from Illinois.
“There’s also a space issue here, not adding beds but providing
space where parents and children can spend time together as
families,” Rabbi Shook adds. Facilities are also needed for
caregiver training. “That’s training with monitors and testing
equipment and feeding equipment,” he explains. “It’s very important
for this institution to properly train parents so when children
are discharged, they go home and they stay well.” Lambrix adds,
“Some of our families are faced with extraordinary challenges
and this is just one of them, caring for a child with medical
needs.”
The Ranken Jordan board considered rehabbing its current building,
but the cost was prohibitive. “It just makes more sense to build
from the ground up considering all the state regulations about
health-care facilities,” Rabbi Shook says. Selling the valuable
Ladue real estate will contribute to the $11 to $12 million
the board hopes to raise. Half will go toward the new facility,
which the Rabbi estimates will be completed within two-and-a-half
years. The other half will go toward programming, like Camp
Ranken Jordan, a two-week summer camp.
Ranken Jordan’s major fundraiser, the annual “Glitter & Glitz
At The Ritz” event, now in its eighth year, takes place on the
evening of the Academy Awards TV broadcast. “The board and the
Friends organization raise a significant amount of money for
programs and equipment on that night,” Lambrix says. Funds and
community consciousness also are raised through Ranken’s annual
Fun Run, golf tournament and the “Ranken Jordan Injured Reserve”
program, in which St. Louis Football Rams injured players visit
Ranken children.
In the not-too-distant future, the board of directors will announce
its new location. Then the real work will begin. But Rabbi Shook
is ready. “It’s very simple,” he says. “It’s all about children
who need help and who have no one to advocate for them. Someone
has to do it, so the fact that Ranken Jordan does it is wonderful.
And,” he adds, “I can just walk over, for now.”
Pam Droog is a St. Louis-based free-lance writer.
