St. Jude Bloomington to Peoria Run

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2002 Goal

More Information:
Doug Gillam
(309) 454-2863

Jim Wright
(309) 663-4664

Carla Meeker
(309) 766-3396

St. Jude treats children with catastrophic diseases regardless of their ability to pay. Many of the children who use the facility have been diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). The St. Jude hospital treats these patients and also does research to find cures. The survival rate for ALL in 1962 was only 4%, but is now 80%.

The first year of treatment for children with ALL is about $250,000. One hundred percent of the money raised through the St. Jude runs goes towards research and the care of children.

The St. Jude Memphis to Peoria Run, the idea of Co-founders Mike McCoy and Gene Pratt, began with the idea of a way to raise money for their favorite charity, St. Jude. The concept of driving to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and then running back, relay-style, to the St. Jude Midwest Affiliate in Peoria, has come to be one of the foremost charity running events in the nation. Each year since 1982, runners have paid for the honor to participate in this unique, 465-mile event that has raised over $6.6 million for St. Jude kids.

Because not everyone can participate in the more rigorous Memphis to Peoria Run due to time and physical constraints, auxiliary runs were started from communities throughout Illinois. Employees, doctors, and nurses from the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis also participate in this event along with runners from cities like Chicago, Macomb, Bloomington, LaSalle/Peru, Springfield, Lincoln, Champaign/Urbana, Galesburg, Canton, Quad Cities, Elmwood, Macomb, Pekin, St. Louis and the Tri-County. Each of these cities send runners to Peoria to meet the Memphis to Peoria Runners and help kick off the St. Jude Telethon held in Peoria, Illinois, each year in August.

The Bloomington to Peoria leg of the St. Jude run has been held each year since 1986. Last year about 70 runners made the 52-mile journey to Peoria, and raised nearly $25,000 for the kids of St. Jude. This year our goal is to have over 100 runners from the area raise $50,000.

On August 3rd, St. Jude runners will start in Bloomington around 7:00 a.m. and run relay-style to the Peoria Civic Center that afternoon. In Peoria, the Bloomington runners will meet with runners from the other towns (including the Memphis runners) and will run together to the Peoria Civic Center where they will be part of the St. Jude telethon and present a check for the money they raised.

We want you to be a runner for this event! The goal is to raise between $300 and $500 per runner. Runners may run as many or as few of the 50+ miles to Peoria as they like, and it doesn't matter what pace you run, as we will always run with the slowest runner on the road at the time.

For more information about these runs for St. Jude or how you can participate, call the St. Jude Run office toll free at 866-861-4451 or visit the website at www.stjuderuns.org. If you would like to participate in the St. Jude run from Bloomington to Peoria (or if you would like to make a donation) contact Doug Gillam at (309) 454-2863.

NOTE: Please save your receipts from Cub Foods in Bloomington for the week of June 30 through July 6th. For more information on who will collect the receipts, email DougRuns@aol.com. Cub Foods will donate 1% of the total of all receipts collected during that time period to St. Jude.