By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – About 125 runners from Bloomington will be taking part in the annual St. Jude Run to Peoria on Saturday, but they will have a lot more company on the roadways.
This will be the 39th year for the annual St. Jude telethon on WEEK-TV in Peoria. There are now 39 satellite runs that come from all over the Midwest as far away as the St. Jude Research Hospital’s home in Memphis.
PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Cler and Ingold on WJBC.
St. Jude provides treatment to children who are battling cancer and other catastrophic illnesses.
“It was very modest and humble in its beginnings and as they were running back they were thinking it was kind of a crazy idea, but it has grown into a nearly $10 million endeavor with the runs and the telethon,” co-coordinator of the Bloomington run Dennis Cler said.
There will be an Avanti’s dinner at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center starting at 5 p.m. along with a silent auction, bake sale and 50-50 drawing. Plus members of the Illinois Wesleyan basketball team will be available to shoot hoops with the kids.
“We hope families will bring out their kids, I know every Titan game I go there’s a whole bunch of kids getting high fives from the players,” the telethon’s McLean County chairman James Ingold said.
Bloomington runners raised $215,000 last year. Ingold said there’s no fundraising goal this year. The goal is simply ‘whatever it takes’ to cure childhood cancer.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
