Blogger19 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Tour

photo provided by Brizo

I typically post about interior design and the design industry.  However, this deserves an exception.  Last week, Brizo Faucet brought all the Blogger19 alumni (those of us who attended Fashion Week with Brizo in the past) to Memphis for a Blogger19 reunion.  Brizo planned and paid for this entire trip.  You'd expect that this would therefore be an event full of Brizo promoting, right?  However, the main focus of this trip was the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.  Brizo has seen a bump in product awareness since starting their Blogger19 events, and this time they wanted to promote the mission of St Jude and it's founder, Danny Thomas.

Nearly 80 bloggers from the Blogger19 group.  Photo courtesy of Brizo.  

(First time this tall girl has ever been in the front row of a photo!)

We spent a day touring the St. Jude facilities, meeting patients, and hearing first-hand accounts from a St. Jude family.  I know I can speak for everyone when I say that this was an amazing eye-opening experience, both heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time.

A few of the points that really struck me:

• It costs $ 1.8 million to operate St. Jude every day.
• Families of patients will not pay a dime.
• And if a family does have insurance, St. Jude will take over that paperwork and handle the costs so the family doesn't have to deal with that stress.
• St. Jude is a research hospital, and they willingly travel the world sharing their findings, in hopes that more patients and families will benefit worldwide.
• St. Jude keeps the patients involved in everything.  Reception desks are kid-height, and doctors share treatment options and test results with the patients at the same time as the parents, so the kids don't feel excluded.

One of the more touching parts of the day was the "Design and Decorate with Brizo" portion, where we all had the chance to do various activities with the kids at St. Jude.  (All photos below provided by Brizo.)

Coloring:

Decorating Tiles: 

Designing a dollhouse room: 

Posing with props for a photo shoot: 

This really was an amazing experience, and I will proudly support St. Jude!  Special thanks to Brizo for opening my eyes to this organization.