Since 1969, the Illinois State Council has been volunteering for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. In 1972, ESA officially recognized St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – the largest center for treatment and research of pediatric cancer and other childhood catastrophic diseases in the U.S. – as a national project.
As a result of ESA’s enthusiastic response to a heartfelt personal appeal by the hospital’s founder Danny Thomas, the hospital became ESA’s first internationally supported charity.
ESA has raised more than $356 million for the hospital and is going strong to realize Danny's dream that, "no child shall die in the dawn of life."
