Your typical rally... what comes to mind? Parking your bike, drinking way too much beer, walking around the same vendors as last year, waking up the next morning with a hangover & getting that shirt that says: I got shitfaced at the Daytona Rally.
The ”rally” we just left was not your typical rally as in we ALL rode. Talimena Rally Cruisin’ for St. Jude is truly all about the kids. Be on a selfish note… I needed that.
I feel like I took more from this rally than I gave!
The rally is every year during the memorial day weekend; Friday & Saturday. Friday was breakfast with a little announcements & KSU 8am. We rode the hills of South Arkansas was provided lunch & returned back to the convention center around 3pm where there was music & dinner provided!
Saturday… same thing! The rally registration provided you with Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner as well as the rally shirt & LIVE music. Saturdays ride was one that TJ and I should have done years ago… Queen Wilhelmina State Park I’m Mena, Arkansas. *an amazing ride to say the least.
Now, roughly 300 bikes & close to 575 people…. Why? It is all about the kids. I listed a few milestones of St. Jude’s Children Hospital. Some of us have never had to walked the halls of a Children’s Hospital however some of us have. Some of us have children that are healthy & striving however some of us have children that know these halls like the back of their hands. Seeing hundreds of riders coming together to raise money for these kids…. It is a knot the size of baseball in my throat! It isn’t one that is just sitting there that I can swallow & retract my tears… it is a heart wrenching void that so many selfless bikers are stepping up to just give back!!
if you aren’t familiar with this ride… please check out their event page & Facebook group!! There is a fire & a desire to Pay it Forward!!
a quick side note… The Talimena Rally has raised almost $400,000 for St. Jude - this is NOT including what was raised this weekend including Sponsors, Silent Auction & Raffle Tickets.
A few milestones: 1966 A group of St. Jude patients are the first acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients to ever be successfully taken off therapy, based on evidence that remission can be sustained. 1977 The hospital launches the first major effort to understand the lifelong progression of sickle cell disease. 1984 We open the After Completion of Therapy Clinic, the world's largest long-term follow-up clinic for pediatric cancer patients.
1996 Peter Doherty, PhD, St. Jude Immunology chair, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. 2006 St. Jude reports a 94% survival rate for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), using therapy that does not include radiation. 2007 The St. Jude LIFE study begins to study the long-term effects of cancer and its treatment. This initiative is one of the most ambitious follow-up projects ever conceived.
2008 St. Jude is designated a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center. We're the first and only cancer center solely focused on pediatric cancer to receive this distinction. 2010 We launch the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, a collaboration with Washington University to uncover why childhood cancer arises, spreads and resists treatment. As part of the world’s largest such initiative, scientists compare the complete normal and cancer genomes of 800 childhood cancer patients with some of the toughest and least understood pediatric cancers. 2018 St. Jude and World Health Organization announce a five-year collaboration to transform cancer care by curing at least 60% of children with six of the most common kinds of cancer worldwide by 2030.
2019 St. Jude announces a cure for SCID-X1, commonly known as bubble boy disease. By combining gene therapy and low-dose chemotherapy with busulfan, immune function is restored in infants with the disorder.
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Very Cool! This is why I follow you Guys!
So amazing! ❤️ definitely gonna add it to the calender!