The Grand Ole Opry® celebrated Country Cares for St. Jude Kids® during a special show this evening. Among the performers were Randy Owen of Country Music Hall of Fame group Alabama, four-time Entertainer of the Year Luke Bryan, and Clare Bowen and Charles Esten of the hit series NASHVILLE.
Luke Bryan, Kael and Nashville’s Clare Bowen
Throughout the show, photos and videos of special moments from Country Cares for St. Jude Kids® were shared during artist performances. St. Jude patient Kael, who is five years old, took the stage as a special guest announcer for the night. After Kael presented Owen with a memento thanking him for 28 years of work with Country Cares for St. Jude Kids,® the Country Music Hall of Famer returned the favor and surprised him and his brother with their own Opry keepsakes.
The month of September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and supporters are encouraged to help St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® in its efforts to end childhood cancer. St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent when the hospital opened in 1962 to more than 80 percent today.
Kael made his @Opry debut tonight and got to meet St. Jude supporters @LukeBryanOnline and @RandyOwenMusic! #CountryCares pic.twitter.com/MGzpqcCSjm
— St. Jude (@StJude) September 14, 2017
About Country Cares for St. Jude Kids
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® has been actively involved in radio event fundraising for 27 years, raising national awareness and more than $750 million to help St. Jude with childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Every year, approximately 1,000 country music industry leaders gather in Memphis every January for the Country Cares for St. Jude Kids® program to support the lifesaving work of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.
Luke is currently making his way up the country charts with “Light It Up,” the first song from his forthcoming, as-yet-untitled album.
Audio / Luke Bryan talks about St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
DownloadLuke Bryan (Country Cares for St Jude Opry) OC: …special deal. :46
“What St. Jude has done for childhood cancer, it’s an amazing organization and when you see St. Jude, whenever you see that name, you trust and you know that it’s just the best of all causes. It’s funny on the big telethon weeks and the big radio weeks when St. Jude has so much of a presence on country radio, it takes on a whole new form riding down the road and listening, when you have kids you find yourself crying along with the radio from the stories. So, it’s certainly something that a lot of parents out there…this organization helps the parents too. I mean from the children to the parents, it’s a special deal.”
