From member Karen Kerry:
“Fisher House Michigan is the ‘House that the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor built!’ We would love for Rotarians to consider joining us at Rackham on Wednesday, November 10th for our Moth-like storytelling event. VIP is at 5:30- proceeds go to Fisher House Michigan. The event is free and the storytelling begins at 7PM.”
STORIES OF SERVICE- VETERANS ACCLAIMED LIVE STORY-TELLING EVENT RETURNS NOVEMBER 10
Artillery and cluster bombs were dancing like stars on the horizon when a sleep-deprived Ray Christian set down his rifle and took a few steps towards the enemy in the desert. He returned still unarmed with four armed enemy prisoners.
“You’ve got to sell it,” comedian Jerry Seinfeld famously says. Dr. Ray Christian, pronounced the most famous Southern storyteller, will sell it on the Rackham Auditorium stage at the 7 PM, November 10th Stories of Service event – hosted by the University of Michigan. Ray, a National Moth StorySLAM winner who earned four rows of military citations and four graduate degrees, will host the 6th annual event to raise money for Fisher House Michigan. For more information, visit https://storiesofservice.org/.
“The University of Michigan is honored to assume sponsorship of this important community event,” says Air Force Veteran Phil Larson, who is Program Director, Veteran and Military Services Associate Director, Office of New Student Programs.
Four other storytellers on stage will include:
Dr. Phil Peven, WWll Veteran and Surgeon in a MASH unit. At almost 105, he and is the oldest living graduate of the UofM Medical School. Injured in service, he recovered by the side of Teddy Roosevelt’s son. He will share stories of operating on our own US Servicemen as well as a German officer! He will be joined on stage by his daughter, Kari.
Abbas Mousa, an Iraqi combat translator and ally, was granted U.S. citizenship for his service and now works as an Economist for the Department of Commerce and as a U.S. National Guardsmen. Abbas has become a regular storyteller with The Moth StorySLAMs in DC.
Kristin Anderson, who joined the Air Force out of high school to train as a Cryptologic Language Analyst. That year’s class was full. Since she had taken a high school chemistry course, Kristin was offered a job as a laboratory tech. She believed she would prepare tissue sample slides. Instead, she found herself performing twenty autopsies a day on returning dead American men and women from war as the trusted assistant of a medical core full colonel who served as coroner. What they learned is shocking.
Ann Arbor’s critically acclaimed Stories of Service began in 2015 hosted at Hill Auditoriam by the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor and has been held every year except during the pandemic crisis of 2020. Over the succeeding five years, Ann Arbor became a model of how a community supports its Veterans from over the entire state by raising $8 million to successfully construct a Fisher House adjacent to the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Today, the Fisher House operates as a sort of Ronald McDonald House except that it provides no-cost accommodations for Veteran and military family members who must undergo extended treatment at the VA or UofM Hospital. Since opening it’s doors in June of 2020, the Ann Arbor Fisher House has served over 2000 families. Ann Arbor’s Fisher House has on-going expenses which the Stories of Service event seeks to offset with donations from its audience and supporters.
‘University of Michigan is excited to bring Veterans like Dr. Ray Christian, Dr. Phil Peven and our other storytellers to Rackham Auditorium’ according to Phil Larson.“To assemble this much entertainment on behalf of a worthy cause like Fisher House is an exceptional honor.”
