A Hopeless Cause? Sign Me Up. | Supporting St. Jude: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Forever.

A recent DRI Cares event got me thinking: How does hopelessness become hopeful?

In February, the Women in the Law and Civil Rights Committees chose to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as their co-located seminars DRI Cares project in Orlando, Florida, in conjunction with the DRI Foundation and its initiative to offer opportunities at DRI seminars for attendees to engage in community service with organizations making a local impact. Attendees gathered before the seminar to assemble “No Mo’ Chemo” party packets, and to write encouraging notes to St. Jude patients and their families. Participants could network with one another either while making confetti kits which are thrown into the air when a child completes their chemotherapy treatments at the hospital, or at the card-writing stations, offering words of strength and encouragement to these children fighting cancer and their families, who are fighting for hope.

Additionally, a guest speaker from St. Jude shared the hospital’s storied history, present-day impact, and the dream of founder Danny Thomas that “No child should die in the dawn of life.” As the story goes, after finding success in the entertainment industry in the 1960’s, Danny gathered his friends and started raising funds to build a hospital that would provide customized care for the world's sickest children regardless of their race, ethnicity, beliefs or ability to pay. Memphis, Tennessee, was chosen as the location of the hospital based on its central proximity within the country, allowing cross-country access, and its nearness to so many children in immediate need, including its first patient, a young African American child from Mississippi who had been denied local treatment.

The hospital’s name comes from Saint Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes and Danny’s personal favorite. Danny sought to give hope among the hopeless, and, truly, hope lives at St. Jude. The atmosphere feels different inside those walls. In the face of hard days and trying times, you’ll see children playing, doctors smiling, and families filled with hope. Hope is oxygen on the campus of St. Jude.

But how can a hospital tasked with treating some of the sickest children in the world be filled with such perceptible joy? Perhaps that answer lies in the fundamental values espoused by St. Jude since its founding. St. Jude is not just an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. St. Jude is one of the world’s leading research and treatment facilities for childhood cancer and other rare childhood diseases, and it freely shares its treatment protocols and scientific discoveries. That includes hospitals in every part of the country, and around the globe. While headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, St. Jude treats patients from all over the United States and the world. St. Jude has 37 offices across the United States, maximizing its local presence and global influence.

Importantly, families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food. Read that again and realize what a safe harbor St. Jude becomes when families show up on that first day of the unknown journey ahead. No wonder St. Jude routinely is named one of the nation’s most trusted nonprofit organizations and favorite charities in America.

What a statement for the DRI Foundation to offer opportunities to support such a laudable organization. Alongside the committees’ DRI Cares Chairs (thank you, Carolyn Husmann, Karen Stillwell, and Megan Silver), St. Jude made it easy for our committees to host this seminar give-back project. For those that could not attend the seminars’ DRI Cares event, tables were placed in each seminar room where attendees could write a note or pick up some free St. Jude swag to incorporate into their work routine. Additionally, in the span of a few days, these two committees raised over $3,000 for St. Jude. When learning about the transformative work of St. Jude, attendees wanted to offer both small and large donations to further St. Jude’s mission of “Finding Cures. Saving Children.”

On a personal note, let me underscore the importance of supporting St. Jude from decades of first-hand experience. Before law school, I worked for the fundraising arm of St. Jude. In that capacity, I helped start the first “Dream Home” fundraisers outside the state of Tennessee, in my home state of Mississippi, where we raised $2 million in the Jackson and Biloxi markets. Those events continue successfully to this day. My love for St. Jude started in the late 1990’s, when I served as Philanthropy Chair of the Beta Mu Chapter at Mississippi State University in 1998, where our chapter became a collegiate model for success, both in mission and in execution. From the fruits of that campaign, which raised $40,000 in its first year (and continues to this day, along with other chapter-specific initiatives that have steadily kept our chapter in the sorority’s top fundraising tier, raising above seven-figures since that time), I served as liaison to help create the formal national partnership between St. Jude and Tri Delta in 1999. To date, this partnership has raised well over $100 million. St. Jude then awarded me the 2000 Jerry Nichelson (Young Volunteer of the Year) Award, presented by the children of Danny Thomas. Additionally, my sister and I were awarded the Tri Delta-St. Jude Co-Alumnae of the Year at the 2023 ceremony.

Over those years, I had the opportunity to visit the hospital’s campus at St. Jude, which changed my life forever. Seeing those children, from toddlers to teens, and their families facing the toughest battle of their lives; experiencing the joyful atmosphere of the hospital and housing facilities under the most trying of circumstances; meeting the doctors, nurses and staff who provide personalized care with both kindness and determination; watching the campus grow further into its world-class status for premier care; and being a small part of support for the hospital’s storied history – that will change you at your core. If you ever get the chance to tour the campus, go. See for yourself. Be changed forever.

As time passed, I never dreamed that one of my sorority pledge sisters (marriage aside, she forever remains “March Gates” to me) would need St. Jude to help her own family. After attending the 2023 Tri Delta-St. Jude conference with us, March learned that her son Gates was diagnosed with an extremely rare bone cancer – Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic – never before seen in anyone as young as her son. A lifelong supporter of St. Jude, she knew the hope that treatment at St. Jude would bring to their family. After multiple procedures, rounds of chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, and related follow up over the course of the last few years, I am so happy to shout from the rooftops that my beloved friend’s son made it, thanks to St. Jude! He is alive. Gates is a young man who will walk forward with gratitude and strength from his journey as a patient at St. Jude.

Watching the care journey up close over all these years has affirmed my commitment to fundraising and awareness efforts along the way, and the reason I encourage others to do the same. How delighted I was to see my worlds merge, when the DRI Foundation via the DRI Cares initiative allowed the Women in the Law and Civil Rights co-located seminars to be the first opportunity for our well-established legal defense organization to work with St. Jude.

Many of you may already personally support St. Jude. Many of you know the power for good that this unique hospital provides to the world. Many of you may know someone treated there, and I pray you have the same survival story to share. After all, St. Jude has helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate in the U.S. from 20% in 1962, to more than 80% today. Did you know that St. Jude treats over 90 diseases, not just cancer, but also blood disorders and other life-threatening diseases?

St. Jude has touched the lives of so many. And for all those sweet souls lost, trust that Danny Thomas’ legacy lives and St. Jude will not rest until “No child dies in the dawn of life.”

St. Jude needs help to further its broad and worthy mission. We have a unique opportunity within the DRI Foundation and through DRI’s committees to offer our support this year. We can advocate through our volunteerism, our words, and/or our dollars. I encourage you to consider choosing St. Jude as your DRI Cares activity. And if for some reason you are unable to attend a seminar to see, hear, and do for yourself in organized DRI networking fashion, consider supporting St. Jude from afar in a way that recognizes DRI’s commitment to such an important cause.

To learn more about the impact of DRI’s support of St. Jude, check out this video about St. Jude Patient Rylee.

Hopeless causes need strong advocates. After all, hope is mighty. In life, it only takes a few people who hold hope to make a big difference in the lives of others. Danny knew it. March knows it. I know it. You know it, too, don’t you?

Republished with permission. This article, "A Hopeless Cause? Sign Me Up. | Supporting St. Jude: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Forever.," was published by DRI Foundation on March 13, 2026.