“It's the one holiday of the year where families really do gather. And it's my favorite holiday because it's all about food and family.”

Sinatra and Nat King Cole and George Burns and all those great stars,” she said. “In our generation, we brought in Robin Williams – may he rest in peace – and Jennifer Aniston, Luis Fonzi, Michael Strahan, Jon Hamm, and a lot of wonderful contemporary stars who’ve helped us.”

They also brought in numerous retailers – including Target, Best Buy, Williams-Sonoma and Domino’s Pizza – who ask customers to contribute to St. Jude as they check out throughout the holiday season.

“It’s a very exciting campaign because it came out of our family,” Thomas said. “My dad would be really thrilled and proud that we thought of it together and we made it happen.”

Unlike most hospitals, which fund their medical treatment with a mix of payments from patients and insurance, St. Jude funds about 80% of treatment costs with donations – about $2 billion each year. However, Thomas said believing in the generosity of the American public has become part of the hospital’s success.

“That’s why they call it ‘America’s hospital,’ because the children come from all over America and the people of America send in the donations,” she said. “It couldn’t exist without American donors.”

And following a $200 million investment in St. Jude Global in 2021, the hospital hopes to offer its treatments for childhood cancer around the world. Currently, outside of the United States, more than half of children with cancer will die from the disease. In the U.S., the survival rate for childhood cancer is now 80%, up from 20% when St. Jude first opened its doors.

St. Jude Global worked with the World Health Organization to rescue more than 1,000 children with cancer from Ukraine after the Russian invasion began, Thomas said. Russian bombings during the war made it impossible for the children to continue their cancer treatment at hospitals in Ukraine.

“We took eight families ourselves,” said Thomas, adding that the hospital found that one of the Ukrainian children had been misdiagnosed. “We also organized it so that these children and their families could be taken in other countries around the world – in Switzerland, Egypt, all kinds of countries – where they opened their hearts to these children.”

Thomas said that is the natural continuation of the story of St. Jude that she hopes the Thanks and Giving campaign helps tell.

“My father said that no child should die in the dawn of life,” she said. “He didn’t mean ‘no American child.’ He meant no child anywhere.”