The Exchange Club of Springfield, Ohio re-dedicated the Freedom Shrine on the fifth floor of the Clark County Municipal Court Building on Wednesday June 22, 2022. Probate Court Judge Richard Carey welcomed the attendees and related how he and indeed many visitors to his court spent time reading the documents so important to our individual liberties. Club President Mark Sullivan introduced Clark County Clerk of Courts Melissa Tuttle, an Exchange Club Member, who spoke on the need for our youth to be exposed to the ideals embodied in the documents. Past Ohio-West Virginia District President Larry Sewell, as keynote speaker, reminded the group of the importance of citizens to not only read the documents, but live each day by those principles of liberty and justice.
The Freedom Shrine is an impressive, permanently mounted collection of 28 important and historic American documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Gettysburg Address. The documents are photographically reproduced from the originals and permanently laminated to individual non-warping plaques. They show our nation’s citizens the strength and courage of their forefathers by allowing them to read, with their own eyes, the immortal words of inspired Americans who so decisively changed the course of history.
Developed by the National Exchange Club, the Freedom Shrine originated from the Freedom Train that toured the nation in 1947 carrying an exhibit of historic documents. The purpose of the Freedom Shrine is twofold. It puts before Americans proof that the freedom and greatness we enjoy today were not purchased easily and reminds them that these gifts must be cherished and protected. Painstakingly researched to guarantee absolute authenticity, the historical American documents that comprise the Shrine were carefully chosen to exemplify the beginnings of our nation and those subsequent turning points of importance which shaped our national character and eminence. The documents of the Shrine, although culled from the past, represent foundation stones which permit the present, as we know it, to exist and the future, as we dream it, to be attainable.
Thousands of Shrines have been dedicated throughout the United States and Puerto Rico in universities, libraries, schools, state capitals, city halls and at American outposts scattered throughout the world where they can be studied and admired.
