.I grew up in a small town in Michigan that really didn’t have much to offer kids to do in the summer except for mainly riding our bikes. If you didn’t have a bike to ride, your best bet would be to ride on either the pegs or the handle bars of one of your friends. One other option was to wait for the annual Bike-A-Thon for St. Judes Children Hospitals and hope that you raised first the most pledges and then could borrow someones bike and ride the most miles to win the big prize of a brand new bike. About two weeks before the big day, St. Jude would disperse the pledge sheets and have all the information about the race. They would also include in the packet what the money that was earned that day would be spent on with in the organization.
St. Jude Childrens Hospital is a nonprofit hospital in which kids with cancer can go and receive their cancer treatments at no cost to the family. St. Jude also helps with room and board and meals so that families can focus on their child and still be close to the hospital. The workers at St. Jude know and understand that having a child diagnosed with cancer can be a very stressful and scary time. They work together and with the families to do what they can to help in anyway possible. But they don’t stop there, some of the money they bring in through activities like Bike-A-Thons is used to research new treatment options for different cancers.
St. Jude’s dedication to helping families and research has carried them into one of the leading hospitals of its time. The doctors, nurses, and executive staff share the desire to help others. I don’t believe an organization like St. Jude could occur in a for-profit environment, mainly because they would charge families for the treatments and housing. For-profit organizations are in the business of making money and therefore giving away free services would take away from the bottom line and take money from the directors and on down the line.
