FAIRBURY - For the tenth straight year, the full staffs from Flood Communications' two Southeast Nebraska radio stations joined forces with St. Jude in the fight to eradicate child cancer.
And once again, this small team and their loyal partners and listeners accomplished big things for people in need: for the second straight year, the team raised more than $110,000 to support St. Jude's life-changing and life-saving work.

The team at Ol' Red 99.5, a famous fixture of the radio airwaves in Fairbury and across Southeast Nebraska, celebrated the ten-year anniversary of its annual partnership with the world-renowned St. Jude Children's Research Hospital with its annual April radiothon this week.

From 6 AM to 6 PM this Wednesday and Thursday, the small team of less than a dozen worked the airwaves nonstop, telling the stories of St. Jude patients and raising money to help the hospital help families in need. St. Jude's promise is that families who need their services never receive a bill for anything - including treatment, travel, food and other necessities - and nearly all of that funding comes from donations to events like these radiothons all across the country.

The Ol' Red team set a personal best last year by cracking the six-figure plateau for the first time, raising more than $115,000, an impressive haul for a small station with a loyal listenership that's spread throughout largely rural regions of Southern Nebraska and Northern Kansas. Donations have steadily increased year-over-year almost every year of the event, excepting the 2020 campaign which was held just a month after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic - a year in which the station still raised almost $30,000. 

And this year, thanks to contributions and donations from individuals, families and many local businesses and organizations, some of which chipped in thousands of dollars to become Partners in Hope and support the effort, the team at Ol' Red continued their impressive run: raising $112,992 over the two-day event. The initial readout at the end of Thursday was $111,835, but a recount including donations that were processed overnight raised the total by another thousand by Friday morning. 

That impressive showcase of charitable giving included four-figure contributions from organizations like Pizza Hut, Westin Packaged Meats, Kramer Oil/CJ Express gas stations, Maatsch's, Kids Connection, and Heartland Bank, and the kind-hearted efforts of many local children and their families, who worked to earn and save some of their own money to give on to a greater cause.

That means the station has raised almost exactly $750,000 over the lifespan of their ten-year partnership with St. Jude, including more than $225,000 over the last two years alone.

St. Jude's mission is to make it so that 100 percent of kids who are diagnosed with cancer survive. And this week the effort from folks who work for a radio station on the frequency 99.5 have helped make those dreams a little closer to reality.