Thursday, April 10, 2003
As the highlight of their National Library Week 2003 activities, CARE Center Project
Director Cathy Rieger and the staff of Roddenbery Memorial Library hosted local and
state dignitaries, Warnell family members, Cancer Coalition members, Grady County
Health Department and other health care professionals, and members of the Grady County
chapter of the American Cancer Society for the grand opening of the CARE Center.
After welcoming remarks by library director Alan Kaye, Julie Miller, M.Ed., from the
Georgia Public Health Department, talked about the Rural Cancer Education and Screening
Project. She pointed out disparities of access to health systems between rural and
urban Georgia. The project selected Grady County for a pilot comprehensive cancer
education and screening program. Grady was chosen as one of three counties with
instances of breast cancer diagnosis that are a certain percentage higher than the
state average.
Cathy Rieger then spoke of the need that library customers have expressed for cancer
information and led a brief candle lighting ceremony that depicted how cancer touches
everyone in some way. Mary Anne Thomas, the granddaughter of Dr. John Braxton Warnell,
for whom the location of the center is named, then cut the ribbon officially opening
the CARE Center.
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