Tri Delta sorority has raised $125 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, reaching another milestone in a partnership that now spans 27 years. The latest $25 million was announced during the group's annual celebration in Memphis, where roughly 400 members from more than 130 chapters across the U.S. and Canada gathered as balloons dropped to mark the achievement.
Since the partnership began in 1999, Tri Delta members have raised the funds through small-dollar, grassroots efforts: pancake breakfasts, campus 5Ks, sporting events, and a letter-writing campaign called "Sincerely Yours." The sorority is now working toward its next goal of raising another $100 million by 2038, the organization's 150th anniversary. "We are incredibly proud to be the Official Partner of Kindness to St. Jude," said Tri Delta CEO Mindy Tucker.
St. Jude itself was born out of a vow. Founder Danny Thomas, a struggling entertainer and devout Catholic, prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, during a difficult season in Detroit in the 1930s, promising to build a shrine in his honor if his prayer was answered. Thomas later fulfilled that promise by opening St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis in 1962, driven by his conviction that "no child should die in the dawn of life." Every family treated at St. Jude receives care without ever being billed for treatment, travel, housing, or food.
"This $25 million milestone reflects the strength of Tri Delta's dedication to making a difference for kids in the U.S. and around the world," said Ike Anand, president and CEO of ALSAC, St. Jude's fundraising organization. Treatments developed at the hospital have helped raise the overall childhood cancer survival rate from just 20 percent decades ago to more than 80 percent today.
