More than 20,000 runners in Memphis to support St. Jude's mission at annual marathon
St. Louis resident Pam Buss hosts several fundraising events for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital each year. Though for Buss, there’s nothing quite like St. Jude Memphis Marathon race day.
For the last few years, she’s hosted a bake sale in her driveway the Saturday before Halloween. This year she raised $1,800 for St. Jude selling $2 cookies and $3 brownies each individually wrapped with an “I Love St. Jude” sticker.
This is Buss’s seventh year participating as she’s running the 10K with her interval running group and is always excited to be back in Memphis for the marathon weekend.
“Just seeing all the people,” Buss said about her favorite part of the race. “Just different body shapes. Different stories. Different people. Different ages. I’m certainly at the older part of it, but all the young, old, different sizes. Once we get out on the course, everyone helps each other. You get to a hill and people are like walking and cheers each other up the hill ... It’s great.”
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Buss was one of about 20,000 people who ran or walked in person Saturday, with another 1,600 participating virtually. Participants came from all 50 states and 75 different countries.
The marathon is the largest, single-day fundraiser for St. Jude, and this year the hospital was hoping to raise about $14 million from the marathon, up from $12.5 million raised last year, said Rick Shadyac, president and CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude.
“To me it's special because it brings 20,000 people, thousands of supporters together supporting the mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, many of them, the overwhelming majority, coming to Memphis, Tennessee, and getting to experience our great city,” he said. “We have incredible patient family participation and I think that's what makes this super special…1,200 patient families will be participating in this race as heroes. It's super exciting for me and it just makes it very real.”
Saturday was the 21st St. Jude Memphis Marathon. All races started on B.B. King Boulevard, finish outside AutoZone Park and pass through the St. Jude campus. The 5K and 10K routes remained entirely Downtown. The half-marathon and marathon routes headed into Midtown via North Parkway.
Many onlookers lined up throughout Downtown cheering on the 20,000 participants with signs, yells of encouragement as the weather cooperated with the runners as it was a clear Saturday morning, which has not always been the case in recent years.
Among those running Saturday morning was the crew and support staff for the upcoming Polaris Dawn space mission, set to take place in the spring of 2023. As part of the mission, which will be operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, the crew is supporting St. Jude.
“We are trying to open up doors and allow space exploration more to be more accessible because that is the future. And this mission is not only focused in on pushing the envelope in space, we want to improve life back here on Earth, and that's why we're partnered with St. Jude,” mission pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet said.
He said there was a natural kinship between the mission crew and support staff and St. Jude. Both are working to push boundaries, find new solutions to big questions, and improve people’s lives.
And since the crew, which also includes Isaacman, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon, are already runners (preparing for space travel involves a lot of physical activity), participating in the marathon weekend was a great way to support the hospital, Poteet said.
Isaacman has supported the hospital for years and, in the run-up to a previous space mission, Inspiration4 -- which Poteet was also involved in -- he and the flight crew helped raise $250 million for the hospital. Those funds created the Inspiration4 Advanced Research Center, Shadyac said.
Shadyac said that having the crew of Polaris Dawn participating in the marathon weekend showed their commitment to St. Jude and its mission. And part of the magic of the race weekend is the communal bond it creates when people are united around a single mission.
“People know that the crew is going to be here people know that Jared (Isaacman) is running in the marathon. And when they see a person who has already given $125 million dollars, personally, to this mission, running alongside of them…I just think it just…it just makes this experience here so unique,” Shadyac said. “He's up he's a billionaire, incredible space entrepreneur, but he's just one of us. And he cares so deeply about this mission, just like all of our other 20,000 (participants) do.”
Buss said one of the most powerful moments of running at the marathon each year was seeing St. Jude’s campus. She and her running group always walk that portion of the race to take it all in.
Buss’ husband had prostate cancer for nine years and later leukemia before becoming cancer free, that’s a large part of the reason that motivates her to fundraise for St. Jude.
“I always said once I’ve done all that treatment with him, I could never imagine doing that for my child,” Buss said. “I always will be here for St. Jude just until they get a cure for all these little kids that go through stuff hardly adults can handle.”
Corinne S Kennedy covers economic development and healthcare for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached via email at Corinne.Kennedy@CommercialAppeal.com.
Omer Yusuf covers the Ford project in Haywood County, residential real estate and tourism for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached via email Omer.Yusuf@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter @OmerAYusuf.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: St. Jude Memphis Marathon: 20,000 runners take part in 2022 event
