If you shopped at Best Buy over the holiday season and gave to the St. Jude Thanks and Giving® campaign, this one’s for you. The dollars generously donated in our stores and online stacked up to a new record, and this week we were honored to donate $20 million to St. Jude on your behalf.
Best Buy employees and leaders from around the country traveled to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® in Memphis, Tennessee, to present the money, tour the family-focused facility, meet patients, and see miracles in the making. Because of private donations like ours, St. Jude has developed treatments that have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent to more than 80 percent.
“At Best Buy, we always hear stories about St. Jude so we know the work that the hospital does is so impactful, but to see the level of care that goes to the patients – the love – that St. Jude wraps around them is incredible,” said Brad Allen, general manager of the store in Peachtree City, Georgia. “And the kids were amazing. When you interact with these kids, it’s like they might as well be on a playground. The care and love that St. Jude gives the patients allows them to keep being kids!”
As part of the visit, Best Buy, with the help of Geek Squad, hosted a hands-on technology event for patients and families. They used alligator clips and batteries to illuminate LEDs, made noise and lit up circuits by combining electric components with dough, built paper crafts including tiny houses and cards that light up, went on a Google Expeditions tour using virtual reality, and crafted fun robots.
“It was eye-opening. I think by seeing the work that they do there, including the research and the things they’re trying to solve… It helps me connect the dots on what we’re doing and explain to my team everything our donations are going toward,” said Joe Banks, a store general manager from New Orleans.
St. Jude Thanks and Giving campaign
Best Buy welcomes the St. Jude Thanks and Giving campaign in its stores and online annually during the holiday season. Every dollar donated by customers helps St. Jude remain at the forefront of the global effort to research, treat and defeat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. In addition, the financial support helps ensure that no family will ever receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food. To learn more about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, visit www.stjude.org.