On the Run, Again

One week from today, I plan to run the Memphis St. Jude Marathon for the third year in a row. Once again, I am running for a very special cause. Even though I have tapped the fundraising well quite a few times this year already, I will be trying to raise funds for essential cancer research. With the diagnosis of my dear friends Todd Burleson and Wes King with cancer during the past couple of years and the continuing battle against the dread disease by two of my students here in Franklin and three of my correspondence students in New York and Texas, I am more committed to this cause and this work than ever before. My goal is to raise $1000 for St. Jude Children's Hospital this year. Won't you help?

The reason I picked St. Jude as the focus of my fundraising efforts is actually very simple to explain: this nationally renowned children's charity hospital is one of the most remarkable and effective medical research institutions anywhere in the world. St. Jude has treated children from across the United States and from more than 70 foreign countries. And yet ability to pay is never an issue because St. Jude is the only pediatric research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. Not one penny! Not ever! Zip! Zilch! Nada!

The treatment of children and the onging research at St. Jude includes work in bone marrow transplantation, chemotherapy, the biochemistry of normal and cancerous cells, radiation treatment, blood diseases, resistance to therapy, viruses, hereditary diseases, infectious diseases, and psychological effects of catastrophic illnesses. Vital work, indeed. And again, always made available to families regardless of their financial means.

Obviously, this kind of care is very expensive. Won't you help me support the remarkable ministry of St. Jude to children and families battling cancer? Please donate now and come back to visit my st. jude sponsor site often. Tell others about what I'm trying to do. Learn how my effort to help find cures and save lives is going. Oh yes, and do pray for my training!