It Has Been 20 Years Too Long: GNA’s Fight To Help St. Jude Kids Continues

For the 20th time, we will be looking to you and GNA Nation to help St. Jude kids fight for their lives.

20 years. 1,040 weeks. 7,300 days. No matter how you measure the time, it is still too long. Too long to be searching for cures. Too long watching kids fight a terrible disease. Too long to hear crushed parents share the heartbreaking stories of losing their children they lost to cancer.

This Thursday and Friday, me, Brian, Chrissy, and Megan will embark with you on GNA's 20th Annual Country Cares For St. Jude Kids Radiothon presented by Dom's Pizza, Subs, and Wings.

It is hard to believe for the 20th time the GNA crew will do all we can to get you to join us in the fight to reach a 100% childhood cancer survival rate. We will do all we can through personal stories and powerful Country songs with stories from St. Jude kids to get you to pick up the phone and call 1-800-372-4999 to become a St. Jude Partner In Hope for only $19 a month. We will give all we can as we continue to fight, and we are hoping you can give as well.

I think the word 'hope' and what it means is a key thing to focus on. We have been a part of this fight for 20 years, and St. Jude has been leading the charge for more than 70 years. Even though all that time has passed, St. Jude always delivers hope. Hope for St. Jude kids and kids in our local hospitals fighting cancer because their research and treatments have brought the childhood cancer survival rate close to 90 percent.

But because of that last 10 percent, it's been 20 years too long. 100% survival is the only acceptable resolution to the fight.

The fight has been a long one, yet with gratitude for all they have done and the hope St. Jude's work in the future will continue to bring, you cannot count the days we are willing to fight so no child dies in the dawn of life. The fight rolls on until the job is done.

For the next two days, we ask you to open your heart when you hear the powerful stories of St. Jude kids and the emotion in their parents' voices about how thankful they are that St. Jude exists.

Even the parents whose stories do not have happy endings will tell you how vital St. Jude has been in their journey. We invite you to share the hope that is the common thread through all of them.

Together we can move mountains. Won't you join us?

Thanks to our Angel of The Hour sponsor County Waste and Recycling for joining the fight and supporting GNA's Country Cares For St. Jude Kids Radiothon.