Last night I had the opportunity to volunteer with a charity that is near and dear to my heart, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. By far, it is my favorite charity. I’m going to apologize in advance because, out of respect for the patients and their families, I did not take any photos. I have a friend who works in the marketing department for ALSAC, the fund-raising arm for St. Jude, and in the future, I’ll have him use his channels to get a blog post with photos approved. Until then, all I have to offer are words.
Memphis has three houses that support St. Jude. Grizzlies House is a very short-term housing facility for families to use when they first come to St. Jude. Ronald McDonald House is a medium-term housing facility. Families can stay there for up to 60 days, I believe. Target house offers long-term, indefinite housing and is the only facility that actually operates under the St. Jude budget. Each month, Bingo is played at each of the houses for the kids to have an hour of fun. When I say an hour of fun, it’s like Christmas fun!
It works just like normal Bingo. The game is played, spaces are marked off, someone yells “Bingo” and wins. There is a wall, literally a wall, full of toys for the kids. As they win, volunteers (moi) hand out tickets to the winners. They go to the wall, pick a toy, hand in their ticket, and it’s a pretty continuous parade of cancer patients getting toys for the entire hour. Everyone wins so much, garbage bags have to be handed out to haul all the loot. Another thing that makes it special is there are no Bingo police checking cards to see if actual Bingo happened. We pretend to check, but the idea is that everyone wins! A LOT!!
Target House is where I volunteered last night. Like I said, I have a friend who works in marketing for St. Jude, and I was asked if I’d like to help. He knows that I ran as a fund-raiser last year in the St. Jude Memphis Half Marathon, and thought I’d enjoy the interaction with the kids. He was so very right! I plan to become a regular Bingo volunteer. True to what St. Jude always does to me, I was so happy to be able to help and bring joy to the kids and their families. At the same time, it’s heart-wrenching that they have to face this terrible disease. Sickening, even! Yet, for an hour last night, there was a room filled with happy kids and their families, doing what kids do, playing Bingo, and being normal. The visual evidence of cancer was everywhere, all over the room, but cancer can’t kill the spirit of a child. When a child yells “Bingo” and high-fives you then excitedly collects the very toy he or she has been eyeing, cancer doesn’t exist in that moment. That’s pretty cool.
What’s your favorite charity or volunteer effort?
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What an awesome opportunity!!!
[…] The very next night, on Thursday, I got to volunteer with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at Target House Bingo. In case you missed it, read all about it here. […]