Advertisement
Two of our greatest assets — generous people and high-quality health care — came together last week in a touching story.
Dr. Jon and Betty Kabara know all too well the deadly scourge of cancer.
Betty lost her mother, brother, sister and uncle to the disease.
Jon, a biochemist, lost his first wife 20 years ago to lung cancer.
Last week, the Kabaras announced a $1 million donation that will create Dr. Jon and Betty Kabara Cancer Research Institute at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center.
Over the years, our community has been blessed with millions of dollars in generous donations to both Gundersen Lutheran and Franciscan Skemp Healthcare. Two recent examples: Gundersen recently completed a record-breaking Steppin’ Out in Pink fundraising walk for breast cancer research. Franciscan Skemp recently opened its Emergency and Urgent Care Center in La Crosse — a $9 million center that included $4.3 million in donations from the medical staff and community.
These donations have strengthened one of our greatest community assets.
The Kabara donation follows that spirit on generosity.
Phil Schumacher, executive director of the Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation, said: “It is their wish that this gift be directed to some specific aspects of nutrition and lipids in cancer biology in the hopes of uncovering new pathways to its cause and cure.”
Betty said that she and Jon believe this dedicated research will help study the role of nutrition in cancer biology — a link that some other institutions weren’t as interested in studying, she said.
Dr. Carl Simon Shelley, who has been a professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, will become Gundersen’s first scientist dedicated to cancer research.
For Jon, a graduate of Saint Mary’s University in Winona, Minn., there’s another reason to give: He’s thankful because “the people at Gundersen gave me a second life.”
While doctors in Florida were less encouraging, Jon received a biventricular pacing wire implanted at Gundersen to correct blood flow from his left ventricle.
Both hospitals, institutions of higher education and many other charitable causes benefit from the everyday generosity of people who give gifts large and small to help make this region a better place to live.
The gift by the Kabara family is especially noteworthy — both for its size as well as its potential.
As Dr. Jeff Thompson, the Gundersen Lutheran CEO, said: “This unselfishness on the part of this family will help hundreds, hopefully thousands of families.”
The help can’t come soon enough.
