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St. Jude Hospital partners with local groups to build, sell ‘Dream Home’

By Sarah Hunt - | Mar 17, 2023
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Claire and her mother, Jayne, tell Claire's story of battling cancer at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital during the St. Jude Dream Home celebration in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
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The St. Jude Dream Home in Saratoga Springs is shown on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
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Volunteers from partnering organizations who worked on the St. Jude Dream Home in Saratoga Springs pose for a photo on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
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Volunteers with Professional Women in Building help a child install a doorknob at the St. Jude Dream Home in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
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Volunteers with Professional Women in Building help a child install a doorknob at the St. Jude Dream Home in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
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Signatures on the unfinished floor of the master bedroom at the St. Jude Dream Home event in Saratoga Springs on March 16, 2023.
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Malcolm Thacker, Market Manager of Oakwood Homes of Utah, speaks at the St. Jude Dream Home event in Saratoga Springs on March 16, 2023.

After breaking ground in September, work is almost finished on the St. Jude Dream Home in Saratoga Springs. On Thursday, members of St. Jude’s fundraising team and local partners gathered together inside the home, the first of its kind in Utah, to celebrate its rapidly-approaching completion.

On hand for the celebration was Claire, a 12-year-old Utahn who received treatment from St. Jude in 2018 for medulloblastoma, a cancerous brain tumor. Claire, whose last name is withheld for privacy reasons, was joined by her friends and family to help finish off the home’s interior.

After 11 months of surgeries, treatments and therapy to regain speech and motor skills, Claire is now in remission and only needs to see her doctors two more times this year.

St. Jude and other organizations gifted Claire and her loved ones drawstring backpacks filled with toys and mementos from Professional Women in Building, one of the partners that worked on the Dream Home.

The gifts incorporated the theme of “The House That She Built,” a 2021 project by Professional Women in Building to construct a home entirely by women to highlight the skills of female construction workers.

Following a kickoff speech, the young volunteers installed door knobs in the house with the help of PWB members.

“One of the kids putting in the doorknobs said to the PWB member helping him, ‘I think you have that the wrong way,’ and she said, ‘Wait, I think you’re right,’ so he fixed it and together they finished installing the doorknob,” said Jennie Tanner, owner of Tanner Glass and Hardware and president of PWB. “It was just so cool to see the kids and construction workers working together to install some of the finishing touches of the home.”

Participants were encouraged to leave their mark on the home by signing the unfinished floor of the master bedroom with their names, well-wishes for the future owners of the home and thanks for St Jude’s mission — finding cures, saving children.

Claire’s mother, Jayne, proudly talk about the positive impact St. Jude had on her and her family during Claire’s treatments.

“It really just completely changed our lives. I didn’t realize there were places like that in the world,” Jayne said.

For 11 months, St. Jude provided an apartment in Memphis for Claire’s family near the hospital so they could be with her during every treatment.

“Everybody there just glows with this hope, there’s always activities and parties going on, and we were able to make deep, life-long friendships. Every employee is working together towards this same incredible goal of saving all these kids that are there, but also kids worldwide,” Jayne said. “The work that they do there, and the researchers and the doctors and the therapists there, they all worked together to bring my Claire back to me. I can’t even begin to express the depth of my gratitude for them.”

The home is expected to be completed at the end of April and will be featured in the Utah Valley Parade of Homes from June 8-24. People can donate or bid on the house at https://stjude.org/give/showplace/utah.html.

Dream Homes have been built and sold all over the country by St Jude to help raise awareness and funds for their nonprofit research children’s hospital in Memphis. Resources and labor required to construct the Saratoga Springs house were donated by Tanner Glass and Hardware, Professional Women in Building and Oakwood Homes, among others.

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