Wasted weekend? On Monday, January 25, come out to O’Shea’s Pub, 956 Baxter Avenue, and enjoy a pint or a snack and feel better. One hundred percent of the proceeds—food and beverages, lunch, dinner and everything between and beyond—from 11 A.M. to midnight will go Jarrett’s Joy Cart, a charity founded by pediatric cancer patient Jarrett Mynear, who sought to comfort fellow kids battling cancer.
Josh Smith grew up as a family friend of Jarrett, who started the Joy Cart campaign in 2001. Josh’s parents and Jarrett’s aunt and uncle eventually created the major Joy Cart Gala, but the idea started out much smaller. “The Joy Cart was 100% Jarrett’s idea,” Smith says. “After participating in the Joy Cart, and seeing the smiles on the children’s faces, you can’t help but want to be involved.”
Jarrett’s mother, Jennifer, started the first Joy Cart in Lexington, and its Louisville history goes back to October of 2002, the month 13-year-old Jarrett succumbed to the multiple cancers that had plagued him from the age of two. “It was this time spent in hospitals that led Jarrett to decide to embark on his mission that has been carried out by his family, friends, and countless volunteers every Thursday at Kosair Children’s Hospital,” says Smith. The campaign continues to have a long reach: Joy Carts deliver toys to children every week in Louisville, Orlando and several other cities. While a major Derby Week fundraiser, the “A Time for Joy Gala,” has raised over $220,000 for toys, camp tuition for sick youngsters, specialized pediatric cancer training for nurses, mobile transport monitors and a playroom in the new Norton Cancer Institute Radiation Center, the basic concept comes down to the hope that Jarrett embraced to the end. As he himself said, “It’s not really about the toys. It’s about giving the kids something to look forward to and to enjoy.”
At O’Shea’s, there will be no other solicitations, and no other requests for donations. For more information about Jarrett’s Joy Cart, call Josh Smith at 888-260-2175; the number for O’Shea’s is 589-7373.
You may also enjoy:
What’s up with the closed car wash on Bardstown Road?
Photo: Courtesy float, www.everystockphoto.com.
