Area women work to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in marathon

EDWARDSVILLE - Kris Straub of Edwardsville and Tammy Hollenbeck of Marine will represent local runners in the famed New York City Marathon in November. The women are also attempting to raise at least $3,500 each for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The marathon runs through all five New York City boroughs as well as Central Park.

These women have been running half marathons for the past few years with their ultimate goal of running a half marathon in each of the 50 states. As of now, each lady has over 30 halves in the books. Tammy has an additional goal of running a marathon on each continent. She has completed three out of seven so far.

For those not familiar with St. Jude, it is a research hospital located in Memphis Tenn. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because the belief of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is all a family should worry about is helping their child live.

Straub said treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent to more than 80 percent since it opened more than 50 years ago.

"St. Jude is working to drive the overall survival rate for childhood cancer to 90 percent, and they won't stop until no child dies from cancer," Straub said. "It costs approximately $1 billion to operate St. Jude this year and the majority of that must come from generous donations from people throughout the country."

St. Jude Research Children's Hospital made the following statement: "These ladies need the support from the community to reach their goal! Follow their journey on Facebook by liking their page." The page is @TKNYC2018. To make a donation, go to their individual St Jude fundraising pages listed below. HTTP://HEROES.STJUDE.ORG/TKNYC-KRIS HTTP://HEROES.STJUDE.ORG/TKNYC-TAMMY

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