Golden Globes party raises $135,205 for St. Jude

The Event: Hollywood’s annual awards season got a little brighter when 292 glitterati converged on the Revel Fulton Market in Chicago on January 8 to walk the red carpet and raise money for St. Jude patient families as they watched a live telecast of the of the Golden Globes® awards.

Presenters, Anne and Michael Brady of Oak Park, told the courageous story of survival by their 9-year-old son, Michael who has been cancer-free for five years and even served as the evening’s red carpet interviewer.

St. Jude sees some 7,800 patients annually from all 50 states and many foreign countries and shares its research freely with the world.

Cause célèbre: “The fact that they put so much into research and they share what they learn with everyone else is such a wonderful cause that anybody could get behind,” said Dave Knickerbocker of Elmhurst, committee member.  

When the hospital opened in 1962, the overall cancer survival rate for children was 20 percent. Today, due in large part to the treatments discovered at St. Jude, the overall child cancer survival rate is 80 percent.

Kathleen Brown originally of Riverside attended the gala as a St. Jude Life participant, part of the hospital’s long-term survivor study.  Brown was diagnosed at 13 with Ewing Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, and has been cancer-free since 1996.

 “St. Jude doesn’t just want to treat (patients) and send them on their way. They want to make sure they’re healthy forever,” said Brown. The two treatment protocols for her particular cancer were both developed at St. Jude.

“There is no better mission in the world than St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,” said Joe Shaker of River Forest, board member and grandson of St. Jude co-founder, Joseph R. Shaker.

Bottom Line: The event raised a record-breaking $135,205.