My name is Paxton Clark.  Currently I am a 7th grader at Beverly Vista Middle School. I enjoy playing sports such as soccer, baseball, tennis and skiing.  I also have a passion for numbers and math. Since taking a finance class last year,  I have opened my own bank account, invested in stocks, and even invested in a CD.  I also like to cook.  

For my Bar Mitzvah project I hope to make a difference in children's health.  To help this growing cause I choose to fundraise for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.   St. Jude is a hospital dedicated to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Located in Memphis, Tennessee, it is one of the largest cancer research facilities in the world.   I chose St Jude specifically because they don’t charge their patients.  St Jude is fully run off donations or as we say in hebrew Tzedakah.  St Jude wants every patient and their family to focus on their child’s health, not the bills.  

Through my Bar Mitzvah Project for St Jude I hope to impact the medical needs of children.  Every year approximately 300,000 children are diagnosed with cancer.  Treatments invented at St. Jude has helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since it opened more than 50 years ago. By helping St Jude I hope that my fundraising will not only affect the children who have cancer now, but also the uncountable number of children in the future.

Though St Jude may be only one building its research and cures are spread across the globe, allowing St Jude to help even more children.