Last Thursday morning, nineteen bikers, some with passengers, were up with the sun to begin the trip from Sterling/Rock Falls, Illinois, to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The St. Jude Rides group was delivering the $56,000 they had raised during the past year along with a truck box of toys. My husband followed with our pick-up pulling their trailer carrying ice chests filled with water and soft drinks. (I rode along.) If anyone had a problem along the way, the motorcycle could be stowed inside the van and our crew cab had room for two passengers. The sun beat down and the temperature climbed to the mid-nineties. Gas tanks and bladders required frequent stops.
Motorcycle cops wearing knee-high, leather boots and sturdy helmets escorted us from state to state. The troopers halted traffic at each signal light and stop sign. As soon as we all passed through, the men in uniform straddled their Harleys and roared ahead. Their warning lights flashed and sirens barked to clear their path to the next intersection.
We spent Thursday night at the Pear Tree motel in Sikeston, Missouri, and were back on the road early Friday morning. Along the way, we were joined by delegations from Peoria and Princeton, Illinois; Des Moines, Iowa; Nashville and Dyersburg Tennessee. By the time we rolled into Memphis, the line-up of two hundred motorcycles plus support vehicles stretched about two miles.
At 11.45 A.M., we entered the St. Jude complex that includes multiple, large buildings with another under construction. After a box lunch, the program began with the group leaders presenting a combined check for $1,007,150, a record amount raised by the room full of people wearing maroon shirts with the St. Jude Rides emblem. During the past thirteen years, their donations have totaled more than $7.1 million. The hospital costs about $2.2 million a day to run.
The program continued with an informative talk from a woman who works at the facility. She had written a song for the staff to serenade a child at completion of chemo treatment. The lyrics appeared on a large screen and she invited everyone to sing along.
A mother with her seven-year-old daughter told what it’s like to hear, “Your child has cancer,” and find hope at St. Jude’s. Families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food–because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. The program concluded with a tour of the facility, which was founded in 1962 by entertainer Danny Thomas. The treatments invented there have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent when they opened to 80 per cent today.
What’s your favorite charity?