Why I Give: Bob Thomas

It’s June 1990. Bob Thomas walks through the doors of Riley Hospital for Children for the first time, holding the hand of his four-year-old daughter, Meredith. She has just been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

Since that moment, Bob has utilized his Capitol City Ford and Bob Thomas Ford locations to fundraise for Riley Children’s Foundation to support Riley kids like Meredith. This past November, the four Bob Thomas Ford locations pledged $100 per vehicle sold to Riley.

Recently, Bob Thomas and his team proudly presented a generous donation of over $26,000 to support Riley children and families and released a Riley Red Wagon into the fleet in honor of Meredith.

Learn more about Bob Thomas and his desire to give back.

How were you first connected to Riley Children’s Health?

We became connected through our daughter, who was a Riley patient in 1990 when she was four years old. She was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), and we ended up at Riley for her to get treated. It turned out to be quite an experience because they were just beginning to realize that all leukemia cells are not the same, and that some patients who present with something like ALL, their leukemia may be different than somebody who has what they thought was the same disease right next door. So, they started taking the leukemia cells out of cancer patients, and they started doing cytogenetic testing to test the chromosomes, the chromosomal nature of the cells. They realized that Meredith's ALL was a very, very rare form. It had what they called the Philadelphia chromosome. That's where the nine and 21 chromosomes are reversed. We’ve been through the wars.

How have you fundraised for Riley Children’s Foundation?

Meredith was diagnosed on the very first couple of days of June, and back then, Riley Children’s Foundation hosted a telethon the first weekend of June. What we decided to do as an organization is that for every car that we sold during the month of May, we would donate $100 to Riley as a way of supporting the hospital and saying thank you. We did that for about 10 or 15 years. We then switched over and sponsored the Indianapolis air show for Riley in the late 1990s up until about 2007. We sponsored that too as a way of thanking Riley and giving back.

What encouragement would you give to other companies that are considering fundraising for Riley?

Look at your people. We have about 300 employees in Indiana, and I would suggest that 30% of them have Riley kids. Riley is the only major research hospital or children's hospital in the state of Indiana. We would have these meetings, and employees would raise their hands, “Yeah, my child's been at Riley.” You'd be surprised how many. For their benefit, it would behoove them to support Riley, because I'll guarantee an awful lot of their people need this place.

What makes Riley so special?

Riley is about kids, for kids. They really do care. They work hard. And there’s not another place like this. You can get to a lot of major hospitals and so forth, and there's a pediatric wing, and you see some kids. But you come here, it's all kids.

My wife and I were in an elevator at Riley, and in comes a mom with her son. He was probably four, maybe five. You could see on his head all the scars from incisions for the operations that they had done on this little boy. We asked, “How are you doing?” And she said, “I just had the best day of my life. For the first time, my son said, ‘Mommy.’”