Friday, 10/05/07
By RACHEL STULTS
Staff Writer, The Tenneseean.com
Article Online
Tickets are $100
FRANKLIN — Ground will be broken today on the region's fourth St. Jude Dream Home, which will be built in Franklin's Westhaven community and is valued at more than $650,000.
Through the Dream Home campaign, people buy $100 tickets for the chance to win several prizes, including a brand-new home. This year's campaign, which aims to sell 16,000 tickets and bring in $1.6 million, is the largest Dream Home fundraising event ever held for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.
"I don't think we ever anticipated being this successful," said Jim Cheney, a spokesman for Southern Land Co., the Westhaven developer that has been one of the sponsors of the fundraiser for the past four years. "Middle Tennessee in general has been the best market in the country for this, and this year we're going to put even more distance between the rest of the country and us."
The three previous campaigns in Middle Tennessee have raised more than $3.65 million for the internationally recognized hospital headquartered in Memphis.
This year's Middle Tennessee Dream Home campaign is a partnership among St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Southern Land Co., WSIX-FM and WZTV-Channel 17.
The four-bedroom, 3½-bath home, which includes a study and bonus room, is on a corner lot at 469 Ardmore Place (lot No. 276) in Westhaven, which is off Highway 96 west of Franklin. The 3,871-square-foot home will include General Electric appliances, granite countertops in the kitchen and hardwood floors.
This will be the fourth St. Jude Dream Home in Westhaven.
Girl beats cancer
The house will be dedicated to Allyson (Ally) Ann Cameron, a 4-year-old St. Jude patient from Murfreesboro who is now in remission from neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that was found on both of Ally's adrenal glands.
Ally's father, Jonathan Cameron, said he's glad the campaign chairmen chose to dedicate the home to a survivor, so that people can "see someone who's living their life like it (cancer) never happened."
"It's hard to enjoy something you wish never happened, but I'm proud that Ally is able to help in the fundraising for St. Jude," Cameron said. "We will do anything possible to help St. Jude — they saved her life."
The St. Jude Dream Home campaign began in 1991 in Louisiana and today is held in more than 30 cities.
St. Jude treats patients from all 50 states and more than 80 countries and shares medical research across the globe.