St. Jude brings telethon to new Bloomington site

Posted on July 31, 2015

By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – McLean County’s annual St. Jude telethon has found a new home this year – Illinois Wesleyan University’s Shirk Center.

McLean County chairman for the telethon James Ingold told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin, the annual fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on Saturday night will include dinner from Avanti’s, a silent auction and bake sale and an expanded St. Jude merchandise store.

“We just want people to come out and watch it in the new digs at Wesleyan and just see what we have to show this year,” Ingold said.

It had been held previously at Central Catholic High School.

More than 150 runners will make the trip from Bloomington to Peoria with a goal to raise $300,000 in the local chapter’s 30th year participating in the telethon. It will air on WEEK TV 25 at 6:30 p.m. The dinner runs from 5 to 8 p.m.

Since St. Jude opened in 1962, cancer survival rates have risen from 20 to 80 percent.

“We are in the red zone, we need to get it in the end zone,” Ingold said.

The telethon is in its 38th year.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].

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