Celebrity Chef and Wine Dinner celebrates 60th anniversary of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - The St. Jude Celebrity Chef and Wine Dinner was hosted Saturday evening at the Omni Hotel in Charlotte.

WBTV’s own Jason Myers emceed the event, which celebrated 60 years of life-saving work at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Guests were treated to cocktail hour hors d’oeuvres and desserts prepared by some of the top chefs in the United States.

Chef Chris Aquilino was among the cooks who made the meal happen, and is a father of a St. Jude patient himself. Aquilino’s son Sydney was diagnosed with T-cell leukemia, a type of blood cancer, at age 8.

The Aquilino family celebrated the completion of his treatment at St. Jude with a parade in 2021.

“The caretakers who we met during Sydney’s treatment and the friends who we made and unfortunately lost have shown us how amazing the St. Jude spirit is,” Aquilino said. “The sense of gratitude we feel for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital continues to be unshakable, and we will forever look for ways to give back.”

The dinner also featured silent and live auctions.

“The support of the Charlotte community each year is inspiring and we are excited to host top chefs and unique experiences during this year’s St. Jude Celebrity Chef and Wine Dinner,” Lyles Eddins, Territory Vice President for ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, said.

“Donor support enables St. Jude to make good on its six-year, $11.5 billion strategic plan that triples its global investment to impact more of the 400,000 kids around the world with cancer each year,” Eddins said.

St. Jude is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent to more than 80 percent since the hospital opened in 1962.

Events such as this one ensure that St. Jude can continue to deliver on its promise that families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food, so they can focus on helping their child live.

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