St. Louis Walks with St. Jude to End Childhood Cancer

The St. Jude Walk to End Childhood Cancer was hosted at Ballpark Village in Downtown St. Louis. Over four thousand people came together for a morning of fun activities and to show their support for a great cause. Various groups of volunteers help make this event happen year after year.

Volunteer Reanne Regan told LUTV why she loves St. Jude. “I love St. Jude, I am a huge supporter of St. Jude because I have a two year old daughter and when I see these kids fighting for their lives, I picture her and I can’t think of a more worthy cause than St. Jude.”

St. Jude relies strictly on sponsors to make this nation wide event happen in 58 cities across the United States. The event in St. Louis shines a light on a special six-year-old girl who lost her best friend after undergoing treatment at St. Jude.

It costs over two million dollars a day to keep St. Jude’s up and running with sponsors like native St. Louisan Jerry Shaw they are able to keep their doors open. Jerry Shaw told LUTV, “I’m on the committee and I work for SAK Construction. My dad is the president of the company and I just asked him if he would like to sponsor it because SAK does a lot of other charities across the country and it was something good her locally that we could get into.”

All the donations made during this nation wide event go towards treatment and research. At St. Jude it’s all about taking care of the child and their family, so they can fully focus on treating their child. For some, St. Jude has made a life changing difference.

Michael Sweeney, father of a former St. Jude patient told us, “my love for St. Jude stems from them saving the life of my son who was diagnosed in 1992 with Ewing Sarcoma. He went through sixty-two weeks of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation and to this day he is now 32 years old and I’m glad to have him.”

The event was a huge success with St. Louis alone raising over $106,000.