September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Every Wednesday during September, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ® will contribute stories that will put a face on the mission to end childhood cancer.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18. Faith and prayer can inspire extraordinary actions in ordinary people.
Danny Thomas was a struggling entertainer trying to make it in show business while supporting his young family. As his struggles continued to mount, Thomas – a devout Catholic – knelt in church and prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, “show me my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”
On Feb. 4, 1962, with answered prayers of success and stardom, Thomas fulfilled his promise and opened the doors of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. It became the first hospital built for the sole purpose of conducting basic and clinical research and developing treatments for childhood cancer, sickle cell disease and other life-threatening illnesses.
Thomas wanted a hospital that would treat children without regard to their race, ethnicity or religion, making St. Jude the first fully integrated hospital in the South during a time when segregation was a way of life.
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source: BlackAmericaWeb.com
