A 17-year-old senior at Centerville has quietly built a fundraising career that most adults would envy, raising more than $30,000 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital since she was just 4 years old. Ashton Brandt's giving started with spare change and has grown into a yearly tradition that now includes odd jobs, business partnerships and matched donations.
According to WTHR, Brandt first got the idea after hearing G101.3 FM, a radio station based in Richmond, Indiana, raising money for hospitalized children. Until she was about 8 or 9, she donated piggy bank money, tooth fairy cash and spare change directly to the station. Her mother, Britney Brandt, told the outlet that as Ashton grew older she started looking for bigger ways to contribute.
From Piggy Banks To Paying Jobs
That search led Brandt to odd jobs. She began mowing yards, cleaning pools and dog sitting, putting every dollar she earned toward her St. Jude fund, per the WTHR report. In 2019, she took the effort a step further by asking local businesses to match her donations, a strategy that helped her total climb steadily year after year until she passed the $30,000 mark this year.
Brandt has also made herself a familiar voice on local radio, appearing on G101.3 FM every year to talk about her support for children battling cancer at St. Jude, the station notes. Her mother said she and Ashton's father are proud their daughter has stuck with the cause for more than a decade.
How Matching Gifts Can Multiply A Donation
Brandt's push to get businesses to match her gifts taps into a formal program St. Jude runs for exactly that purpose. The hospital explains on its website that a matching gift occurs when an employer donates an equal or greater amount to the same nonprofit after an employee gives, according to stjude.org. St. Jude says those employer programs can double or triple an eligible donation, though the hospital also notes it can take two to four weeks to process a matching donations form.
Brandt isn't the only teenager who has turned a personal cause into a major gift for the hospital. In Boerne, Texas, a then-17-year-old cancer survivor named Maddie Barber raised $30,500 for St. Jude in January 2022 through a local livestock auction, as reported by ksat.com. Barber directed the proceeds to St. Jude, where she had spent eight months receiving care at the Kendall County Jr. Livestock show fundraiser.
The Bigger Picture Behind The Donations
Fundraisers like Brandt's and Barber's feed into an institution that has become one of the largest charitable operations in the country. ProPublica reported that St. Jude raised a record $2 billion in the year before its investigation, and that the hospital held $5.2 billion in reserves, an amount the outlet said could fund the institution at its current level for four and a half years without a single additional donation.
That same ProPublica investigation found that across five fiscal years, only about half of the $7.3 billion St. Jude received in contributions went toward research and patient care, while roughly 30% paid for fundraising and 20% went into reserves. The outlet also reported that St. Jude spent 2% of the money it raised in the prior year, or nearly $40 million, on food, travel and housing for families. St. Jude says families aren't billed for treatment, travel, housing or food, but ProPublica noted the hospital covers travel and housing costs for only one caregiver and one patient, and that some families face financial strain from lost income when parents quit or take leave from jobs during a child's treatment.
Brandt has said she hopes her fundraising can help reduce the burden of medical bills on parents of sick children, according to WTHR's report. She plans to attend college in 2027 and has said she dreams of becoming a speech pathologist at St. Jude, carrying her decade-plus of giving into a career built around the same hospital she has supported since childhood.
