Marathon Shrine Club MM 50 · Florida Keys
Marathon Shrine Club · Florida Keys

We drive the kids to the doctor.

Free transport. Free care. Pancake breakfasts on the side.

Donate now Meet the club
Based at
MM 50
Round trip
487 mi
Boot drive
1 / yr
To the kids
100%
Family pays
$0
Free transport Free care No bills, ever 100% to the kids Marathon · Key Largo · Big Pine · Key West

The Marathon Shrine Club is a volunteer Shriners chapter in the Florida Keys. The club drives Florida Keys children to Shriners Children’s hospital in Tampa for specialty medical care — pediatric orthopedics, burn care, and complex spinal surgery — that is unavailable on the islands. The round trip from Marathon to Tampa is 487 miles, roughly 14 hours of driving. Families pay nothing: the club covers gas, flights, and lodging through donations and its annual boot drive, held every Presidents Day weekend at the corner of US-1 and 109th Street in Marathon. The chapter operates under the Mahi Shriners (Shriners International group exemption EIN 59-1924702, IRS section 501(c)(10)) and donates online through Zeffy, which charges no platform fee, so 100% of gifts reach the Patient Transport Fund.

Annual paper drive

Presidents Day weekend

Find us at US-1 & 109th.

Once a year, the club stands on the corner with boots in hand and asks the Keys for help. Every dollar dropped in the boot, or scanned with the QR code, goes straight to the Patient Transport Fund: gas, plane tickets, lodging for Keys families on the road to Tampa.

Skip the boot, donate now

No child should miss the care they need because the nearest specialist is hundreds of miles away. The Marathon Shrine Club raises the money, drives the cars, and opens the hospital doors so the kids of the Florida Keys never do.

A story · I.

A child in the Lower Keys needs a surgeon she cannot reach.

Pediatric orthopedics, burn care, complex spinal work: the specialists exist, but not on the islands. The nearest one could be eight hours away.

A story · II.

The drive is four hundred and eighty seven miles from Marathon to Tampa.

Round trip. Often weekly. For families already stretched thin, the road is the first wall between a child and their treatment.

A story · III.

So the Shriners get them there.

Volunteer drivers. Vans. Flights. Lodging if it’s needed. Every transport, every appointment, every meal: there is no bill mailed to the family. There never has been.

A story · IV.

And then we do it again next week.

Every week, another Keys family makes the drive. The Marathon Shrine Club is here so the 487 miles are never the reason a kid misses care. Pull up a chair next to us.

The route

Four hundred and eighty‑seven miles, drawn.

From a clubhouse at Mile Marker 50 to the Shriners Children’s in Tampa. Drive it once, then drive it again next week. The route below traces a real round trip; scroll, and the road advances.

Miles driven 0 of 487
Round trip · Marathon ⇄ Tampa ≈ 14 hours behind the wheel Reimbursed at the IRS medical-mileage rate
By the numbers

The work, in figures.

What the Marathon Shrine Club raises does one thing: get a Keys kid to the doctor in Tampa, and home again.

0
Miles round trip, Marathon to Shriners Children’s in Tampa.
0
Boot drive a year — Presidents Day weekend at US-1 & 109th.
$0
What a Keys family is ever asked to pay for transport, treatment, or lodging.
0%
Of your gift goes to patient transport — Zeffy charges no platform fee.