NAA announces new five-year, $500,000 commitment
with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®

The partnership highlights NAA’s pledge to help St. Jude end childhood cancer.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (Oct. 26, 2017) – As a mark of its continued pledge to support the fight against childhood cancer, the National Auctioneers Association has announced its newest fundraising pledge for its philanthropic partner, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.

According to the partnership, which officially began in July, the NAA will use its best efforts to raise $500,000 for St. Jude over a five-year period that began July 1, 2016, and will end June 30, 2021. The funds raised through this pledge will be used by St. Jude for research and treatment of children from across the country and around the world who are battling cancer and other life-threatening diseases. The partnership also helps ensure families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food – because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.
In return for its efforts and continued recognition of St. Jude as a national philanthropic partner, NAA will be recognized through the naming of a fifth-floor conference room at the Danny Thomas Research Center on the hospital campus in Memphis, Tennessee.

“For more than 20 years, NAA and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have partnered in their philanthropic effort,” said NAA CEO Hannes Combest, CAE. “NAA members have graciously and passionately provided their unique fundraising tools, including their auction talents, as a means for supporting the children of St. Jude. We are extremely pleased to continue the tradition of partnership between NAA and St. Jude.”

In all, NAA has raised and donated more than $5 million for St. Jude through its partnership, now in its 22nd year. In addition to those efforts, the NAA hosts the NAA Toy Auction every November at St. Jude. Patients and their families are taught a few tongue twisters and a couple of facts about auctions before they “bid” on donated children’s items, such as toys, clothes, electronics, etc. This year, the NAA Toy Auction will be held Thursday, Nov. 2.

“We are grateful for the generous partnership we share with the National Auctioneers Association, and the toy auction is something we look forward to every year at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,” said Richard C. Shadyac, Jr., President and CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude. “Thanks to their caring hearts, the bidding experience designed for our children is not only educational but also gives patient families an opportunity to have fun in the midst of one of the most trying times of their lives.”

For more information about the NAA “Auction For Hope” program for St. Jude, visit stjude.org/naa. For more about the NAA, contact (913) 541-8084 or visit auctioneers.org.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 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 to more than 80 percent since it opened more than 50 years ago, and St. Jude won’t stop working until no child dies from cancer. For more information about St. Jude, visit stjude.org.