By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – Central Illinois raises more money per-capita for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital than any city in the United States.
The hospital in Memphis recently welcomed about two-dozen ambassadors from Bloomington-Normal.
Quincy Cummings, president of the Bloomington-Normal branch of the NAACP, called the tour an eye-opening experience.
“You have kids that are going through unimaginable sickness and health issues,” Cummings said. “We complain about our daily ailments. They pale in comparison.”
Wife Chemberly Cummings helped collect and deliver more than 100 coloring books and crayons for the children at St. Jude.
PODCAST: Interview with Chamberly Cummings on WJBC.
“It’s probably one of the simplest things, yet you never know how much it helps,” Cummings said. “It gets their minds off of what’s actually going on.”
Regional Director at ALSAC, St. Jude’s fundraising and awareness arm, Julie Witte said the Central Illinois area has felt St. Jude’s healing touch.
“They can see first hand with our clinic in Peoria, we are helping all of these kids right here in our area,” Witte said, referring to the clinic at Children’s Hospital of Illinois. “Truly there is just no place like Central Illinois when it comes to supprting the children of St. Jude.”
The visitors witnessed first hand and how their donations are helping to save lives.
The group met with Peoria native Beth Stewart, a pediatric oncologist who explained the Genome Project, which sequences normal DNA with cancerous DNA, something akin to finding a letter missing in War and Peace.
PODCAST: Interview with Stewart on WJBC
“One little tiny mistake in a DNA can cause a really big problem,” Stewart said. “We are constantly striving to find new therapies, combinations of drugs that will actually focus on these vulnerabilities that we find.”
Gene mutations are found in more than 8 percent of children with cancer. The Genome Project is starting a clinical trial on a new treatment for a childhood bone cancer where current prospects of survival are dim.
St. Jude officially opened a new proton therapy lab last December. Proton therapy is a far more precise form of radiation than conventioanl treatments which allow for much strong doses for radiation to remove a cancer. It’s the only lab of its kind in the world that treats only children as indicated by its musical staircase and rain forest-themed waiting room.
St. Jude recently filed plans for a $1.2 billion expansion over the next six years. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, plans include a new office tower and the addition of about 1,000 workers to handle a 20 percent increase in the number of patients that can be treated on campus.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
