"Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine." -D.T.
It all started on February 4, 1962, in Memphis Tennessee, by a man named Danny Thomas. And at this point in time in the United States, the survival rate of all childhood cancer was only twenty percent. And if it couldn't get any worse, the survival rate for a very common type of leukemia, called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), was just four percent.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital proved to be special from day one, when every child was accepted regardless of race, (which was obviously monumental at the time due to the fact that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had not yet been passed), or the ability of a family to pay. And by 1970, only eight years after the doors of St. Jude opened, they issued a statement saying, "leukemia can no longer be considered an incurable disease." Yet ten years before, leukemia was almost a death sentence for children.
So because of St. Jude, so many incredible things started to happen. So many medical and scientific "firsts" happened at St. Jude. The survival rate of ALL increased to seventy-three percent by 1991. And now, children can survive without radiation.
But St. Jude doesn't just foster scientific and medical discoveries, it provides an atmosphere for children to get better.
A little boy going through chemotherapy treatment didn't have an appetite. His doctor asked him what he would like to eat, and he replied saying he wanted his grandma's mac n cheese. St. Jude called the little boy's grandmother and asked for her recipe for her mac n cheese. Because of St. Jude, a little boy going through chemotherapy ate his grandma's mac n cheese that day. But doing things like this can't be done without money, which is why it costs an average two million dollars a day just for St. Jude to be in operation.
And in 1991, Tri Delta nationwide partnered with St. Jude Children's Research hospital, and adopted them as their national philanthropy. And ever since that day, not only did children's lives continue to change because of St. Jude, but so did the lives of so many young women across the nation.
It was a three a.m. wakeup call, a five and a half hour drive, and for over one hundred Mizzou Tri Deltas, a life changing experience all within under thirty-six hours. I, along with all of my sisters, are privileged to have committed to raise sixty million dollars in just ten years for the children of St. Jude Children's Research hospital, because St. Jude is more than commercials asking for donations, or just a hospital full of sick children; it's a passion for finding a cure, and it's real. Those children give us hope, a hope that fuels our passion to keep raising more and more money to help find a cure. Those children give us hope, that one day we too can contribute in the medical and science fields to help others get better. Those children are the reason many of us are Tri Deltas.
I'll never be able to give St. Jude justice in seven-hundred words, I couldn't do it in a million words, because it's worth so much more than that. Nothing is worth more than being able to make sure that "no child shall die in the dawn of life" just as Danny Thomas said.
And because of St. Jude, every child and family truly is, never alone.
*If you would like to get involved, learn more about the miracles that happen in Memphis, or donate in any way, please feel free check out the St. Jude Website at www.stjude.org * I promise it is a cause worth learning about
NOTE: The statistics and facts in this article can all be found on St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's website.
