Nursing Student Ends up in Foreigner Video Through Shriners Hospital
This article originally appeared in the Lexington Herald Leader.
University of Kentucky College of Nursing sophomore Lily Silverstein is too young to know much about the band Foreigner, except for the 1980s hits her mom would occasionally blast over the car radio, like "Juke Box Hero," or "Cold As Ice" or "Hot Blooded."
But Silverstein learned a lot more about the band last year, when she appeared in a music video that accompanies the band's latest album, Foreigner: Live in Concert.
Lily and Foreigner have a special connection: Shriners Hospital for Children. All through her childhood, Silverstein would make the four-hour trek from Paducah to Lexington to fix a problem she was born with: a missing fibula in her right leg. She went through five surgeries at the Lexington Shriners, and countless prosthetics. She still played sports and excelled in school, eventually becoming a member of the Lewis Honors College with a nursing major.
She was so close to her caregivers here that last year, she was named a National Ambassador for Shriners, one of just two designated every year.
About the same time, Foreigner band members were wondering how they could use their fame to help the national chain of Shriners Hospitals. They decide to donate to Shriners all the proceeds from their new live album and the video of perhaps their biggest hit, "I Want to Know What Love Is."
"Foreigner has been involved with Shriners Hospitals for 10 years, and we've been looking for a way to make a more meaningful impact," lead singer Kelly Hansen said in a statement when the album was released in January. "The lyrics of this song really speak to the qualities we've observed in the children here at Shriners Hospitals. The kids show this amazing resilience and happiness that really makes one think how powerful love is."
The new video featured shots of numerous Shriners patients, including Lily and her mom, Eve Silverstein. Shriners officials said they did not yet know how much money has been raised by the album and video.
"It was cool no matter what because these are really famous guys and they're really important to a lot of people," Silverstein said. "My mom was really thrilled for sure."
Lily credits her time at Shriners with inspiring her to become a nurse.
"Everything at Shriners is very patient centered and very based off of individual patient," she said. "Nurses are taught to treat a patient from the inside out ... there's just a different focus and training, that's something that makes me stay in nursing."
