St. Jude Dream Chicago comes to Millennium Park with a hope for kids with cancer

Millennium Park will be the venue for the 2nd annual St. Jude Dream Chicago event on Saturday, October 1. The event will support the global mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and is aptly themed “A Dream for the World.” The event will transport guests around the globe through an international street market as they immerse themselves in different cultures. The event will also feature auctions and the very best Chicago has to offer in food, cocktails, and entertainment including performances by The Pointer Sisters, Grace Kinstler, Ho Etsu Taiko and Carpacho y su Super Combo.

Event speakers will include Richard C. Shadyac Jr., president and CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and its national outreach director, Marlo Thomas, award-winning actress, producer, social activist, philanthropist, and daughter of founder Danny Thomas.

Though the event takes place in the heart of downtown Chicago, the St. Jude mission reaches beyond the United States. This international scope reflects the founding vision of Danny Thomas who opened the hospital in 1962 with the firm belief that no child – anywhere, should die from cancer.

The Chicago event will celebrate the worldwide impact St. Jude has had and its ongoing work in helping to alleviate global disparities in survival rates for childhood cancer and other catastrophic diseases. Such work includes the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines, a collaboration with the World Health Organization to source and provide high[1]quality cancer medicines to children in low and middle-income countries. St. Jude has already committed $200 million to the platform, which is anticipated to help as many as 120,000 children in the next five years.

St. Jude turns laboratory discoveries into lifesaving treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. And families never receive a bill from St. Jude for anything -- not for treatment, travel, housing or food -- "because all a family should worry about is helping their child live."

Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since the hospital opened in 1962. (stjude.org)