Kentucky Corvette owners raising money for St. Jude

At 10:12 a.m. Thursday, 32 Corvettes in a rainbow of colors with 64 people inside pulled into the parking lot at Moonlite-Bar-B-Q Inn, 2840 W. Parrish Ave., on their way from Louisville to Memphis.

Larry Ott, Louisville coordinator for the drive, said this is the 13th year Corvette owners in Kentucky have made the drive to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

Drivers commit to raising $1,250 for St. Jude and passengers, $750.

Ott said this trip has raised $83,000 so far.

The St. Jude Corvette Drive brings cars from Louisville, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago and Peoria, Illinois together.

They were scheduled to rendezvous Thursday night in Dyersburg, Tennessee, and drive into Memphis today with a convoy of 112 Corvettes.

Ott said he expects the total raised by the five groups to be “north of $400,000.”

He said the Kentucky cars are being escorted by two state police cars.

Ott said this is his seventh year participating in the 410 mile trip.

“This isn’t one club,” he said. “It’s people from several clubs and some who don’t belong to any club.”

This is the second time the Corvettes have stopped in Owensboro at Moonlite on the trip, Ott said.

The organization’s website says, “Since its 2012 inception, the St. Jude Drive has raised more than $2.2 Million to further the lifesaving mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In 2023, the St. Jude Corvette Drive from Peoria, St. Louis, Nashville and Louisville raised $340,000.”

Actor Danny Thomas opened the doors to St. Jude in 1962 with the dream that “no child should die in the dawn of life,” the hospital’s website says. “Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20% to more than 80%, and we won’t stop until no child dies from cancer.”

It says that families never receive a bill for the treatment their child receives.