News
The finest high school football players from New Hampshire and Vermont will face off this Saturday at Alumni Field in the 48th annual Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl, which organizers hope will raise over $200,000 for Shriners hospitals.
David Orr '57, the organization's director of media relations, said the Maple Sugar Bowl and other similar athletic fundraisers bring in nearly $3 million to the Shriners each year, allowing them to operate twenty-two hospitals throughout the nation and provide children with free health care.
The Hanover game is the third largest football competition the Shriners organize -- out of the forty that take place all over the country -- and has attracted up to 10,000 visitors to Hanover in past years.
Over the past forty-eight years, the Hanover event has raised four and a half million dollars, Orr noted.
The funds raised from the Hanover game, he added, will specifically benefit the Shriners hospitals in Springfield, Ill., Montreal and Boston.
But the activities will begin before the kickoff.
Approximately 3,000 Shriners from throughout the northeast will march down Main Street in a parade beginning at noon.