LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — After 22 years of volunteering at St. Jude’s Ranch thrift store, Patty Jaques said the place feels like home.
“I didn’t even realize how fantastic this store was until I started volunteering,” Jaques said.
Her brother Allen works alongside her at the ranch, handling mail room duties, maintenance and landscaping for seven years.
“I work out of the mail room and we do some of the maintenance and landscaping and different things around the ranch. So I’ve been doing it seven years,” Allen said.
The siblings have nearly 30 years combined caring for a community far from their Michigan home, inspired by their mother’s final message.
Following mother’s notes
Patty said their parents were in a tragic car accident in 2003, and she lost her mother.
“Our parents were in a tragic car accident. We lost our mother in 2003, and I came down to help with my dad,” Patty said.
After the accident, Patty discovered notes throughout her mother’s belongings.
“Every desk drawer, every anything, there was a note saying, talk to the Thorntons about St. Jude’s,” she said.
The Thorntons were a family that traveled from Michigan to Boulder City to help at the ranch. Patty and her father continued that tradition until he passed away.
“My dad came out with her for 10 years. Then I lost my wife in 2018 to illness. I had a lot of time on my hands, and then they invited me out,” Allen said.
Both their parents and their siblings are memorialized on the ranch.
“I’ve been given a lot, and I love to give back. You know, so we don’t need jobs. We’re very fortunate,” Patty said.
The family affair of giving back to the Las Vegas Valley continues as a way to honor their parents.
“The people who are here are so kind that work here and nice. It just feels like family still, after all these years,” Patty said.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
