Buck can be found blogging almost daily at Buck’s Blog, where he shares product reviews and adventures/mishaps of trying to stay fit, debt-free all while raising a little girl from a father’s perspective.

When you become a father you get all sort of advice. The advice ranges from “just rub X on it and it’ll clear right up” to random quotes about raising a child. As a father you have to let most of it fall off your back. One quote however stuck with me. “No child should die in the dawn of life.” In November 1962, Danny Thomas opened St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital based on that idea.

The story of how St. Jude came to be starts with a prayer made by Danny Thomas, a young entertainer looking for answers about his direction in life. He prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, and made a promise: “Show me my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”

In the years that followed, Danny’s career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. But he never forgot his pledge to St. Jude. In the 1950s Danny proposed building a unique children’s hospital, which would be devoted to curing catastrophic childhood diseases such as cancer and sickle cell disease. Danny envisioned more than just a treatment facility. This would be a research center for the children of the world. And no child would ever be turned away because of the family’s inability to pay.

As one of nine children born to Lebanese immigrants, Danny turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage, and asked their help in raising the funds to build and maintain the hospital. His vision struck a responsive chord, and from his request grew ALSAC, the fundraising organization of St. Jude. Today, ALSAC is the nation’s second-largest healthcare charity and is supported by the efforts of over 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Danny’s dream became a reality when St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital opened in 1962. He lived to see his hospital become a beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. Danny died on February 6, 1991, just two days after celebrating the hospital’s 29th anniversary. Today, his children, Marlo, Terre and Tony Thomas, carry on their father’s work and remain a driving force in fulfilling his mission to find cures and save the lives of precious children.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is one of the world’s premier centers for the research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases. Children from all 50 states and around the world have come through the doors of St. Jude for treatment, and thousands more around the world have benefited from the research conducted at St. Jude – research that is shared freely with the global medical community.

Working together, our physicians and scientists have pioneered treatments that have helped push the overall survival rates for childhood cancers from less than 20 percent in 1962 to more than 70 percent today. The survival rate for the most common form of childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, has risen from just 4 percent in 1962 to 94 percent today.

St. Jude pays for everything — food, travel, and lodging.

Quick Facts about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital:

• Eighty-five cents of every dollar received supports the research and treatment at St. Jude.
• No child is ever denied treatment because of the family’s inability to pay. St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance.
• St. Jude impacts the lives of children in communities across America.

To donate $1 to St. Jude’s Research Hospital to save the lives of children from across the U.S., click here. Please use “One Dollar Give” in the dedication portion of the donation form. After you’ve donated, come back and vote in the poll so that we can count donations!

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(Yes, the poll offers you the choice between “Yes.” and “Yes.” because I didn’t think we really needed to count the “No” answers, and the poll required two choices! Hey, it’s not a perfect system, but it’ll work!)