Deciding to support St. Jude

Transcript:

Emily

Hi, I’m Emily Hines and this is St. Jude Connections. I work on the social marketing team at ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. My job gives me a lot of opportunities to interact with our supporters. I love hearing how people come to support St. Jude, what’s happened in their lives that makes them say, ‘Now is the time.’ I got to talk with four of our supporters who were attending a big event on campus, and I asked them a lot of questions, and what they said was so moving.

In this episode, they’re answering the question, “Why did you decide to support St. Jude?”

You’ll hear from Kaia. She’s in Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated.

“We would go to walks, and I knew what we were doing, but I didn’t really understand the impact when I was younger.”

And you’ll hear from Chris, who works for the fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon – they’re known as the TEKES.

“After joining Tau Kappa Epsilon – Danny Thomas was a TEKE. So, we’ve had an ongoing relationship now for 50 years.”

And Ronni, who’s also a Zeta Phi Beta.

“I would do presentations about donating to St. Jude to family and friends.”

And first we’ll hear from Keeley. She’s a graduate of the St. Jude Leadership Society.

Keeley

So, my mom's friend’s son, he passed away from cancer, and he was a St. Jude patient. And so, when I was a sophomore in college, I knew his story and then I heard about St. Jude Leadership Society, and I was like, Okay, this would be awesome. I might as well do this. And at the time they were like, Okay, you need to raise money. And then COVID happened. And so, I ended up sewing masks because I learned how to sew a long time ago. And me and one of my friends would go to my grandma's house and she had like a sewing room. And we ended up sewing, like over 5000 masks. We would go crazy just every day, just sew and sew and sew. And it was so cool to see who, like the lady next door would just come over with bags of fabric and give it to me and things like that. So when people did decide to give like that, it was super cool. And then I asked for $5 per mask and then everyone would give $15, you know, and it's like, it's so cool that people care enough to not only buy the mask from me, but they also care enough to like, learn more about St. Jude and then I can talk about it. And it was a really good experience.

Chris

That's impressive.

Kaia and Ronni

Five thousand?!

Keeley

It was a lot. But then the hard part was giving it to them because it's like, okay, nobody wants to see you. So then I would put them in cute little baggies and people got to pick what kinds they wanted. And I had like a big basket outside at my house and people would just come grab it and I would put like stickers with their names on it and they would come grab it after we had Zoom calls to pick out a whole bunch. And it was fun.

Chris

I'd known about St. Jude for years and I think I might have done some fundraising, maybe some coin collecting when I was young. I was trying to remember what that first time was, but I don't remember the details. But after joining Tau Kappa Epsilon, Danny Thomas was a TEKE, so we've had an ongoing relationship now for 50 years officially with St. Jude and our commitments to that has been something that I wanted to support myself in addition to helping encourage others to be a part of it. It's something my wife and I talked about, and we make a donation each year, and I've made a commitment for each of my kids each year, and they understand that they're supposed to take that on. I'm doing it for each of them at a certain level until they can do that. And they each have a collection of St. Jude Christmas ornaments that they get each year. That's our family commitment. And what we do through TEKE is an exciting way to continue spreading that word.

Ronni

A friend of mine actually got diagnosed with cancer, and there was this big push in our school for fundraising for places that help with cancer research. And St. Jude just happened to be one of them. And so that's probably the first time I heard about St. Jude. And then it had always been on my radar because right now I'm studying medicine, and that's always been an underlying passion of mine was medicine. And for a while I wanted to do research, and you think research and children and you think St. Jude. So, I would do presentations around school, high school and a couple in college about donating to St. Jude to family and friends and things like that. And so even though me personally, I couldn't donate a whole lot of money my parents, they donate because I'm like, Hey, we should donate to St. Jude. They're like, okay, we can donate a little bit here and a little bit there, but being able to just talk about it, I felt like that was my way because at the time, even a little now I don't really have the financial stability to give a lot, but what I can do is spread awareness for it. Like if you didn't know already with the commercials, you know someone who's actually been impacted by it. And now my friend, she is healthy. She's living her best life right now. And she wouldn't be able to if that weren't for places like St. Jude. So I'm super passionate about it.

Kaia

Well, for me, my mom is in the same sorority and so we have youth affiliates and my mom had put me in the youth affiliates. And so we would go to walks and I knew what we were doing, but I didn't really understand the impact when I was younger. And so when I got older and when I joined, I got to learn a lot more about it and I became a lot more passionate for it. Because I like to say my growth path within St. Jude, just because I knew what I was doing when I was younger and my mom would give me a dollar and she'd be like, Go to that table, give them the dollar, and you can say you donated, you can write your name on the list. And that was exciting for me. Even as a young child, I was like, yeah, I donated to St. Jude and I'm only like seven years old with my little dollar. But when I got older and I found out that the sorority was actually invested in it and we partner with St. Jude, I got to learn a lot more about it and that's how I kind of got into it. And then I got invited to this event and that was really exciting because it was my first time. I feel like I've learned a lot to be in a place where you can actually see the impact and meet people firsthand. It's insane. It's incredible. I'm really glad to be able to get this opportunity not only through St. Jude but also through my organization to be able to get opportunities like this.

 

Keeley

I think it's also cool because you hear people saying like, you never have to pay a dollar when you’re a patient or their family, but how much of it is actually true? And then you meet them, and you hear like, I never paid for a single thing. I mean, you're so worried about a million things and the fact that you don't have to worry about any of the things that you would normally have to pay for is just so crazy.

 

Kaia

Being here has definitely been tugging on the heartstrings a little bit just to see people, and see the passion as well. Because you know that everybody here is passionate about this. And so just to be able to hear everybody's stories and why they're here and if they've been affected and stuff like that, I feel like I've been blessed with this opportunity for real.

 

Chris

And they talk about the whole experience. When I got to visit the hospital a few years back, I got to actually tour inside the hospital itself. And one of the things, it's a small thing in some ways, but the counters at the registration desk are kid height. Where that kid's first experience perhaps coming in with their family. You know, typically they'd show up to a counter and the adults would do their talking and the kid might not even be able to see what's going on. But here, that's something that they pay attention to, the way everything is so crafted for the patient’s experience, the family’s experience, everybody. It really shows in so many ways.

 

Kaia

Yeah, the thoughtfulness is, it's there. You can tell they thought about every single detail just to make sure that the experience that they have is one that will bring the peace of mind and just kind of making sure that their experience is as great as it can get.

Emily

So, what’s your St. Jude story? When did you start supporting our work? I made the decision to do that even when I was still in treatment here for leukemia. I felt so loved and supported, that I knew I had to do my part for the next person. I hope you’ll join me and Ronni and Keeley and Kaia and Chris and many others. Go to stjude.org/connections to find out how. You can also watch videos of this conversation there and listen to more podcast episodes, or you can find it on the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital YouTube channel. And you can learn more about the St. Jude Leadership Society and our work with Zeta Phi Beta and Tau Kappa Epsilon.

St. Jude Connections is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It was recorded by Jason Latshaw, Dan Yohey, and Nathan Black. Produced by Geoffrey Redick. Edited by Grace Korzekwa Evans. I’m Emily Hines, thanks for listening.

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