Jodi wasn’t really a beneficiary of Savage Support. Her husband, Frank, had pledged a dollar per pizza sold at his Bay View restaurant to us during Breast Cancer Awareness Month beginning in 2015 during which Jodi had been fighting breast cancer. In the late summer of 2017 when her cancer began affecting her independence more, her family reached out to us for a referral for home hospice care. Becky Van Der Ploeg, our board Secretary and Registered Nurse specializing in patient welfare and treatment planning was able to help support her and her family. That’s all that we ever did for Jodi. No financial assistance. No services.

Jodi passed away on Saturday, November 4th of 2017. I went to offer my condolences to Frank and thank him for his previous support of our organization. We had no idea that the last line of Jodi’s obituary was, “In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Savage Support.”

The outpouring of love for Jodi stunned us. Many of the pledges went directly to beneficiary services but some, eventually, went toward an initial deposit in an investment account at Citizen’s Bank.

Brandon Reed, our nonprofit advisor, tells us that it’s very important for a nonprofit to have a capital account. It helps to ensure the long-term financial health of an organization like ours through lean times and unexpected expenses. We can all agree that the last thing that we ever want to do is turn someone away because we haven’t the money to help them. Jodi’s pledge to us is a great safeguard against that ever happening. She worked in financial services for 24 years with Prudential and Wells Fargo herself.

Given her work experience and incredibly generous memorial gift, that Savage Support’s investment account will be heretofore known as The Jodi Nowak Tenuta Capital Fund. Thank you, Jodi. Thank you, Frank.

Mark Browning

Savage Support Vice President