Wheels already in motion for annual Par-X fundraiser

WOONSOCKET – September is just around the corner, and coming along with it will be the latest edition of Joseph G. Hyder’s breakfast fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Hyder’s cast of fundraising assistants are already hard at work preparing for the St. Jude benefit at Club Par-X, at 36 Stanley Ave., on Sunday, Sept. 17.

Club Par-X donates all the food and cooks the breakfast for the St. Jude’s benefit. Hyder’s volunteers serve up the meals to donors paying $7 each in advance and $8 on the day of the breakfast, which runs from 8:30 a.m. until noon.

There are also silent auction fundraisers for items, such as a baseball signed by Red Sox relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel,

New York Yankee Whitey Ford, and other noted players.

A raffle will also be held for a first prize gift basket worth $200, a second prize of $150 worth of gift certificates, and a $100 money tree as a third prize.

Hyder, now 89 and retired, has been working to organize fundraisers for St. Jude’s since he got the call to help out while working in radio and television in New England and for broadcast networks.

“I was asked to do it back in the 1970s,” Hyder recalled.

It was St. Jude Children’s Hospital founder Danny Thomas, in fact, who had asked Hyder to lend a hand to his organization in the Worcester area, Hyder explained. “You couldn’t say ‘no’ to Danny Thomas,” Hyder said.

Hyder shares Thomas’ Lebanon-Syrian ethnic background and noted how that was an added reason to listen to his request.

“He did a lot for my people of Lebanese and Syrian descent from the Middle East,” he explained.

Danny Thomas was actually a show name drawn from Thomas’s brothers Danny and Thomas, and his real name was actually Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz. His family, including 14 children, were Maronite Catholics and his parents had come to the United States from Lebanon when it was still considered a part of Syria.

Hyder has also organized other efforts to help St. Jude since talking up Thomas’s call in the 70s, and among them were the WOON Radio-A-Thon in Woonsocket, a WNRI fundraiser and the annual Christmas-time collections Larry Poitras’ students at the Good Shepherd Elementary School always took time to run while turning over about $2,500 to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Over the years, Hyder estimates the area’s generosity has contributed over $300,000 to the St. Jude cause and he remains very grateful for that support. Danny Thomas died in 1991 but his daughter, Marlo, and son, Tony, continue to serve on the St. Jude Board of Directors.

Hyder was also invited to serve on the board and attended its regular meetings for many years. He is now an Emeritus member and doesn’t travel to Tennessee any longer.

But locally, he continues to be a driving force behind the annual breakfast fundraiser and has seen new faces come into help like Romeo Berthiaume, a former city teacher and local radio personality on WOON.

“I want people to know we are proud of what we do,” Hyder said while maintaining he doesn’t plan to give up his own role anytime soon.

The Par-X crew will be putting on another great meal of eggs as you like them, ham, home fries, baked beans, toast, coffee and juice.

Tickets purchased in advance are available at WOON Radio on Park Avenue, WNRI Radio on Diamond Hill Road, Club Par-X on Stanley Avenue, Vose Hardware and Pepin’s Lumber on Cumberland Hill Road, Bileau’s Flowers on Diamond Hill Road and at Piette’s Jewelers at Walnut Hill Plaza.

Anyone seeking to contribute to the fundraiser can contact Berthiaume through WOON at 401-762-1240.