Bloomington/Normal St Jude's Runners

Welcome!!!

The St. Jude Memphis to Peoria Run, the idea of Co-founders Mike McCoy and Gene Pratt, began with the idea of a way to raise money for their favorite charity, St. Jude. The concept of driving to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and then running back, relay-style, to the St. Jude Midwest Affiliate in Peoria, has come to be one of the foremost charity running events in the nation. Each year since 1982, runners have paid for the honor to participate in this unique, 465-mile event.

 
The History

In 1986, the family of a St Jude patient, in Towanda, organized and launched the Bloomington to Peoria Run. For 16 years, the Epsilon Sigma Alpha (ESA) Sorority organized the event for the Bloomington runners. In 2002, a team of past and current  St. Jude runners, working with the St. Jude Run Office in Peoria, organized the event for Bloomington/Normal. Together, they set in motion unprecedented growth in the size of the B-N St. Jude Run Team and in money raised for St. Jude.  This growth peaked in 2010 when 180 runners helped raise $250,000, a record for the B-N St. Jude Runners.

 Because not everyone can participate in the more rigorous Memphis to Peoria Run, auxiliary runs were started from communities throughout Illinois. Employees, doctors, and nurses from the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis also participate in this event along with runners from cities like Chicago, Macomb, Bloomington/Normal, LaSalle/Peru, Springfield, Lincoln, Champaign/Urbana, Galesburg, Canton, Quad Cities, Elmwood, Macomb, Pekin, St. Louis and the Tri-County. Each of these cities send runners to Peoria to meet the Memphis to Peoria Runners and help kick off the St. Jude Telethon held in Peoria, Illinois, each year in August.

Our Mission

The Bloomington-Normal St. Jude Runners will strive to serve the larger mission of ALSAC and its fundraising efforts to support the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis and the St. Jude Midwest Affiliate in Peoria.  We will:

• Safely participate in the run to Peoria each summer.
• Strive to raise more money than was raised the previous year to benefit St. Jude.
• Support the many St. Jude fundraising events taking place in our area.