The St. Jude Run was mostly back to normal this year. Normal route. Normal rules. Normal send-off. Normal crowds in downtown Peoria cheering in the runners. And despite a few changes to the post-run celebration and telethon, things reverted back towards our pre-Covid days.
And with a mostly normal year came a big challenge...the Eureka St. Jude Run Million Dollar Mission. The Eureka St. Jude Run had their inaugural run 8 years ago. After last year's run, Zach realized that if the Eureka team could raise $154,425 they would hit $1,000,000 raised since the inception of the run. And so...the Million Dollar Mission was born.
Zach's goal every single year is to raise as much money as possible for St. Jude's life-saving mission. He pours his heart into planning and organizing the run, gathering business sponsorships, recruiting new runners, and spearheading our individual fundraising efforts.
Zach's passion for this cause and this purpose never fails to inspire me. He works tirelessly and his enthusiasm is contagious. So much so that this year, he recruited virtual runners from coast to coast...literally.
Our kids are fully imbedded in our St. Jude Run. They donate their own money, spend the morning with grandparents cheering us on, proudly display their St. Jude Runs apparel all year long, and look forward to the day when they are old enough to join the run. I can't wait to not only share the mission, but this inspiring day on the roads with our kids.
To accomplish the feat of raising $154,425 as a team this year was going to require some unprecedented fundraising work. Our team has never raised that much in a single year, and our total number of runners was less than in our previous highest grossing year. So we were going to need to raise more money with less people...a difficult task to be sure.
Zach poured everything he had into making the mission a reality, and several days before the run came to the realization that it was just not going to happen. As a numbers guy, he watched the money coming in and calculated it against past years precedents to determine that, despite his best efforts, Eureka just couldn't make it happen this year. And so he prayed for a miracle.
The following day Zach got a call from a current patient's father who, after watching the Memphis runners leave the hospital where his son was receiving treatments, felt a stirring to join the run this year. With just a few days before the run, he joined the Eureka team to show support for his son and assist with the fundraising efforts for the organization that is working to save his son's life.
Although the day was brutally hot, it was inspiring to see the support of the community, the passion of the runners, the continued support of donors, and the patients cheering us on as we ran in honor of them to raise funds and awareness for the work of St. Jude. One of my favorite days with some of my favorite people.
And at the end of the day, Zach was able to reveal the impossibility of what God had accomplished through our Eureka St. Jude team.
The Eureka Run miraculously raised $171,425! The Million Dollar Mission was accomplished, and God put his exclamation mark on that total by far surpassing what we even thought was possible.
Zach and I were able to raise $38,000 through the staggering and generous support of friends and family. Between the two of us, we ran 46 miles on run day. And although sore, tired, and sunburnt by the end of the day, our hearts were full of gratitude, hope, and awe at what God can accomplish.
St. Jude Run day is one of our favorite days of the year. It is inspiring and humbling and hard and full of hope. This was an amazing year! And now it's time to start working on that second million.
