Central Louisiana, because of its location, has often been called the “heart” of Louisiana, but it’s a nickname that goes deeper than its geography.

Our people make the nickname stick. Time and again, they do so with their hospitality, warmth, kindness and generosity. That will be the case at Saturday’s St. Jude Memphis Marathon, the largest fundraising event each year for the famous children’s research hospital.

Cenla Running Heroes, a group that has been raising funds for St. Jude’s Children’s Medical Research Center for seven years, for the first time reached the $1 million mark, according to the group’s founder and director, Ronnie Schwartz.

There are three divisions of fundraisers – corporate, community and patient – and the 62-year-old Schwartz, the general manager at the Louisiana Athletic Club for a little more than three years, has done wonders leading the fundraising efforts. He has led a group of some 26 fundraising “heroes” to top-four fundraising finishes in the community division since 2019, including a first-place finish in 2019 and a first-place finish this year.

More incredible, the Cenla group is second overall in America this year, behind only the Shaw Industries Group, Inc., which is one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers with more than $6 billion in annual revenue and approximately 22,000 employees worldwide. It is headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, and its parent company is Berkshire Hathaway. Shaw has 226 running heroes.

Schwartz, father of two daughters in their 20s, credits his wife, Robyn, for much of his inspiration and drive to do well in an unpaid “second job” as the director of the Cenla Running Heroes. He said the Cenla group expects to raise $300 million just for this weekend’s event alone.

Annual fundraising starts in March, and many individuals, couples and businesses contribute or hold fundraising events for the cause. You’re probably familiar with at least some of them: two travel ball softball tournaments sponsored by Jimmy Greer each year, the Hackers Cup golf tournament started by Dustin Matthews, Ben Vanderlick’s Crawfish for a Cure. Now, even the Cenla Pro Rodeo (formerly the Amicus Club Rodeo) is a fundraiser for St. Jude’s.

Keith and Agnes Ashby, and Adam and Sarah McCoy (who have a daughter benefitting from the treatment at the SJ clinic in Baton Rouge) are two other couples who are fundraising “heroes.” I can’t mention them all, but with some 45 youngsters in Central Louisiana receiving or seeking the free treatment provided at St. Jude’s, and an enviable survival rate (reportedly 94 percent), we’ve got some folks who have seen what it has done in their own families and are thus motivated to give back.

One couple, for example, that didn’t seek personal attention but agreed for me to share some of their story is Richard and Julie Sanders.

Their son, Evan, is a St. Jude survivor. At age 12 he was diagnosed and successfully treated for osteoblastoma, a rare but benign bone tumor. Yet, a cancerous osteosarcoma returned to his back at age 13, requiring more surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy, Julie said, with a lot of trials and problems, including partial, then full paralysis.

“There was a team waiting for our arrival,” Julie said, “and they took care of us from Day 1. They provided everything you can imagine that he – and we — may have needed during this medical crisis, keeping him as comfortable as possible.”

Evan is now 31 and he has run in a couple of St. Jude marathons, and even though he was told he’d never have children, he’s a father to a 5-month-old boy, Julie said.

If you don’t already know someone who has been a patient at St. Jude’s, “eventually you will,” says Julie, a teacher at several Rapides Parish schools in adaptive physical education. “And Ronnie has taken the fundraising efforts to the Nth degree, and we’re so moved by everyone’s efforts.”

Not every St. Jude story is a success story, but there are so many, it’s worth celebrating the “victories.” It’s also worth celebrating the generosity of the people in this area who have rallied behind one fundraiser after another for St. Jude’s to put little ole Cenla at the top of its division in the fundraising efforts across the entire United States.