Disc golf is saving children from terminal illnesses.
The fun-loving, lid-throwing, outdoor enthusiasts directly impact the fight against pediatric cancer each year through Ledgestone’s St. Jude donation campaign.
Ledgestone has sent nearly a half million dollars to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital since the partnership began 10 years ago. After 2023, the donation for St Jude and the rest of the charities that Ledgestone supports sat at more than $634,000, with another huge addition being tacked on in 2024.
The St. Jude connection with Central Illinois has an impact reaching far below the surface. The Memphis-based hospital’s Peoria affiliate clinic is the first and largest of its kind in the world.
“St. Jude really runs deep in the roots of the Peoria community and it’s why we’re so excited to be a part of the Ledgestone disc golf tournament,” said Mollie Shepardson, the Midwest territory principal advisor for St. Jude. “It has been great for all of our participants to get involved with something great in our community.”
This is made possible through several avenues of generosity, but the top funding tool used by Ledgestone each year has been the St. Jude Charity sets. Limited runs of Paul McBeth and Paige Pierce Line discs are released in specialty plastics with one-of-a-kind stamps and given a certificate of authenticity.
Each year, the sets change slightly, but their collectible value remains highly regarded by disc golf enthusiasts around the globe. The price points of these sets come at a higher ceiling than any other discs on the market. At face value, it might make more sense if they were made partially of gold, but their value is worth more than gold to the children whose lives are being saved through each purchase. Every single penny from each specialty set purchased from Ledgestone goes directly to the charity.
One example of a major success for St. Jude is with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. When the charity began in 1962, the survival rate for this specific cancer was about 4%. Now, due to breakthroughs at St. Jude, kids now have a 94% chance at survival with this disease.
St. Jude costs over $1 billion to operate annually and over 75% of that is covered by public contributors. Through those individual donors like Ledgestone, St. Jude is able to focus on the most important part of their mission: saving kids regardless of their financial situation.
St. Jude conducts more clinical trials for pediatric cancer than any other children’s hospital in the country. The research hospital sees more than 8,000 patients annually and is able to provide care free of charge to the families, making life-saving healthcare accessible to underprivileged families. They pride themselves on never having to send families a bill.
“The donation’s impact is huge,” Shephardson said. “It ensures that no family ever receives a bill from St. Jude; not for treatment, travel, housing or food.”
The 2024 Ledgestone donation will primarily come from three specialty sets.
The first is the Midnight CryZtal Sparkle Putter Set. This particular set is in its fifth year and includes three limited-edition runs from the lineups of Discraft’s two most prominent athletes. Historically it has included a Fierce and a Luna, but has expanded to also include Paul McBeth’s newest putter: the Kratos. The set will be entirely midnight sparkle black, giving a sleek appearance to each disc in translucent CryZtal plastic. Each mold features its own signature foil. The Luna has gold foil, the Kratos has red foil, and the Fierce has teal foil, all surrounded by those same-colored metallic foil flecks infused into the plastic. These discs fly like standard Z plastic runs. A crisp stamp featuring the mold’s name, player logo and old-school Elite Z logo are combined with the words “2024 St. Jude Charity Edition”. Only 200 sets of these putters were made, and each set comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity.
The second and third are the White Z Glo Paul McBeth Line Sets with differing foil stamps. This set of seven discs contains Paul McBeth’s entire lineup in white Z Glo plastic with a special edition Big Z stamp featuring each disc’s namesake: Luna, Malta, Anax, Hades, Athena, Zeus and Kratos. Because of the Z Glo plastic, each mold tends to be more overstable than its standard stock run. Despite the Z plastic, these discs are opaque white with added tackiness in the hand. Only 500 sets were made and each set comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity. This run contains 250 with a colored version where each mold has a different foil color and then 250 in a version where every mold has a black foil stamp.
