St. Jude, PGA a match made in fundraising heaven
The PGA's top golfers have garnered much of the attention this week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind, the first of three FedEx Playoffs events.
But the long-running Memphis event is also a showcase for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and ALSAC, the hospital's fundraising organization.
"This week has been special," Richard Shadyac, ALSAC's president and CEO, told participants at a Thursday night awards celebration following the Danny Thomas Celebrity-Am at Spring Creek Ranch golf course in Collierville, benefiting St. Jude.
Shadyac added later that the "relationship with FedEx and the PGA Tour elevates the mission" of St. Jude. "We get worldwide audiences," he added.
He said he's especially proud to showcase to visitors the "grit and determination" of Memphis and Memphians to counter the negative images some have of the city. "This is a city that epitomizes the willingness to defy the odds," Shadyac said, citing St. Jude founder Danny Thomas' audacious goal of treating children with catastrophic diseases, including cancer, in a segregated city in the late '50s and early '60s. "I am passionate about addressing childhood health-care inequity on a global scale," he added.
Powering that mission is a sophisticated fundraising operation. The team largely operates behind the scenes. Although based in Memphis, the ALSAC team is multi-national. The PGA-St. Jude partnership, which started 53 years ago, has generated more than $66 million since St. Jude became the charitable partner. The tournament in 2022 generated $6.5 million for St. Jude.
Participants in the Danny Thomas Celebrity-Am tournament included former Memphis Tigers and NFL great Isaac Bruce, former Miami Heat star and current team executive Alonzo Mourning and singer-songwriter Jillian Cardarelli.
Marques Brownlee, a YouTube influencer and ultimate frisbee player from north New Jersey who does videos about technology and product reviews, said he participated as a first-timer as the celebrity in the Thursday golf tournament to give back.
"I've been a golfer my whole life, and I jumped at the chance to work with such a special brand as St. Jude," said Brownlee, 29, who has nearly 20 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.
In a similar vein, Spud Webb, best known as a 5-foot-7 NBA point guard who won the All-Star Slam Dunk contest in 1986, said he was attracted by the chance to give back. He said the chance to be associated with FedEx, St. Jude and Memphis was also a strong magnet. "It's all about giving back and I've been playing in golf tournaments for a decade and this one is special because of who benefits," said Webb, president of the Dallas Mavericks' G-League development team.
A St. Jude JAM event on Wednesday at FedExForum featured musical performances by Gary LeVox of Rascal Flatts, Tommy DeCarlo of Boston and singer-songwriter Jillian Cardarelli, as well as a spirited live auction that included a 1965 Ford Shelby Cobra Roadster built by six FedEx pilots. The replica kit car, a tradition at the auction since 2015, drew a winning bid of $125,000. In all, St. Jude JAM raised slightly more than $1 million from the auction, donations and sponsorships, topping last year's total of $827,000.
Shadyac notes that the planning for next year's tournament will begin the day after a tournament champion is crowned Sunday afternoon, with St. Jude patients nearby and others holding the flag on the greens of some of the holes Sunday.
"It takes a village to put on this tournament, involving hundreds of volunteers, FedEx staffers and ALSAC staffers from throughout the nation," Shadyac said. "It's a year-round effort. We could not do this without help from the citizens of Memphis."
Mark Russell is executive editor of The Commercial Appeal. You can reach him at mark.russell@commercialappeal.com or you can follow him on X: @MarkRussell44
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: St. Jude fundraising golf Memphis charity
