For most people with a life-threatening disease, words such as normal and abnormal often can lose meaning.
Lincolnshire resident Jennifer Bott learned that while watching her friend Tobi Klonecki, who struggled with metastatic breast cancer and later died from it. Bott and other friends of Klonecki reacted to their loss by founding a nonprofit group in her name – Forward4Tobi.
Now in its third year, Forward4Tobi recently made its largest donation to date. The group gave $75,000 to NorthShore University Health System’s Kellogg Cancer Center in Evanston, which will use the money to support breast cancer patients with everything from travel expenses for clinical trials to housekeeping costs.
“When she was sick, she discovered many people couldn’t afford to have their hair cut or have child care,” Bott said. “She always felt very lucky that she had the insurance, and the money to go get a wig. She knew people who didn’t, and it really bothered her. That was our reason to create it.”
Forward4Tobi will participate in an upcoming Mother’s Day walkathon in downtown Chicago and a triathlon on June 26. The foundation also hosts two blood drives every year in Deerfield, where Klonecki lived. The nonprofit’s objective, Bott said, remains to help patients with breast cancer stabilize their lives.
“She was always trying to be normal in a world that became very abnormal for her,” she said.
Q: People who have heard of your foundation know of Tobi as a cancer victim. Who was the Tobi that you knew?
A: Tobi was the most caring, loving, honest, giving person. If she met you, she would bring you into her circle. She was the type who would just stop her day and listen. She remembered birthdays, anniversaries, she just gave her all. She always had an optimistic smile.
Q: Operating a nonprofit is probably great when you make the donation to the charity you’re trying to support. What is the rest of the year like?
More Top Picks Adhd Focus Tips That Actually Work Without Medication
A: We’re in a huge learning curve. It has been huge for me to learn about all the tax papers and learning all the things we have to file. There are days where I don’t understand what we’re doing, and I have to figure it out. But I know Tobi would say, “I know you can do it.” Our first year, we made mistakes. We submitted everything we had to the IRS, and they sent it back. We’d forgotten a few papers, and we had to pay a fee. We had plenty of that.
Q: What was something that took Tobi by surprise? What is something you see in other breast cancer patients that all the preparations do no prepare them for?
A: Let me try to think of what Tobi would have said. … The most difficult part is that people don’t know what to say to them. Sometimes people avoid you because they don’t know what to say to you. But she still wanted to be a normal person. You could just say, “How are you?” Tobi would say, “Treat me like I’m a normal person.”
Shout Out is a weekly feature where we get to know and introduce our readers to their fellow community members and local visitors throughout suburban Chicago. Check out more online at ChicagoTribune.com/ShoutOut.
Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer