KESQ partners with St. Jude to raise money for cancer research
KESQ is partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to raffle away a brand new house, worth an estimated $425,000 in Cathedral City. The giveaway will raise money in the first giveway of this kind in the desert. The hospital’s research on cancer is used all over the world, including here in the Coachella Valley. New Channel 3 morning anchor Angela Chen took a trip to Memphis, where the hospital is based, to learn more about the work the non-profit medical corporation has done.
If you were to walk the halls, it doesn’t quite feel like a hospital. The halls are a swirl of color and uplifting murals, and bright balloons bounce above desks. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is meant to give children back their childhood as they battle cancer.
For one mom, the place has been a godsend. Adriana Solorzano is from Mexico, and her son was not able to get the help he needed there for his rare disease.
“In Mexico, we have few chances to have a different treatment,” said Solorzano. “You just have a few choices, and you have to take them. Sometimes, they don’t work, and you realize many kids are dying in Mexico because they don’t have the right treatment for cancer.”
One of the biggest employers in Memphis, St. Jude has been around since 1962. They’ve helped children from all over the world.
“They are faced with this crazy adversity but you really see them kind of pulling together,” said Dr. Jennifer Harman, a clinical faculty member in the Psychology Department. “We’re going to do whatever we can, and I don’t know — it really gives you hope for positivity and humanity.”
St. Jude is where doctors often send their toughest cases because this research hospital has the best survival rate for childhood cancer. Treatment invented at St. Jude has helped pushed survival rates from 20% in the 1960s to more than 80% today.
And treating the kids means treating all aspects of them. The hospital provides psychologists to help patients deal with more than just their diagnosis.
“They’ll sometimes also talk about things they see on social media and thinking that their friends back home just don’t get it,” said Harman. “Like, does it really matter what someone was wearing in the main lobby at school that day? They just don’t get it, and they get frustrated with that sometimes and so we help support them through that.”
St. Jude staff says that more than 75% of their operating funds come from fundraising.
It’s why St. Jude Dream Home Giveaways, like the one in Coachella Valley, are so important in helping kids with cancer — so that their families never have to pay a single bill as they fight the toughest battle of their lives.
