Carlie Trent, 9, was last seen during the afternoon hours on May 4. She was signed out of her Rogersville, Tenn., school by her uncle, Gary Simpson, 57, who has no current custodial rights.
Just three days later, Carlie’s pediatrician, Dr. Chris Calendine, pledged to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to the safe recovery of the child.
In an interview with Epoch Times, Calendine says why he felt the need to pitch in.
“I’m fortunate, there’s not a lot of times in my life I would’ve had 10 grand,” he said, adding that rural pediatricians don’t quite make as much money as people think.
Calendine had initially intended to buy himself a boat with the money, but changed his mind. “It’s been a busy year, I’ve been working a lot and had been putting away, yeah, that’s kinda what we were planning toward, but I mean whether it was a boat or a trip, the bottom line is there’s plenty of time for that, but none of it is worth more than helping out a little bit.”
Calendine said the idea actually came from some of the kids from Rural Health Services, where he works. He said they'd been using social media to get the word out and they had mentioned raising money. He then joked about asking the near 5,000 kids within his practice to donate $2 each to raise the goal of $10,000, but he said there was no time for that.
“They’re amazing kids, I’ve gotten to work with these kiddos, some of them for more than 15 years, and we really want them to know when they walk through our doors that we care about them and we'd do anything for them, and we’re definitely sincere about that,” Calendine said.
