Above: Sandra Lowery.
Our 39th Annual Awards & Charities Gala and fundraising efforts will benefit research being led by Rena Feinman, Ph.D at the Center for Discovery and Innovation at Hackensack Meridian Health to identify innovative approaches to improve response to therapies for triple-negative breast cancer. We are dedicating our fundraising to all the women in our industry who have suffered from breast cancer, and to all colleagues and friends in the industry who have been impacted by this disease and other forms of cancer.
This year we are making an appeal to individual members of the industry who would like to join us in our fundraising by donating. We are honored to have industry colleagues serve as our ambassadors to help us raise funds. Thank you to Adrienne Bastinelli, east region director of marketing, UBEO; Laura Blackmer, president, dealer sales, Konica Minolta; Chelsey Bode, CEO, Pearson-Kelly Technology; Jennie Fisher, group president, office technology, Great America; and Toni Gorveat, CEO, Cobb Technologies.
It’s our honor to kick off the fundraising on our website created in partnership with Hackensack Meridian Health Foundation with a $5,000 donation in memory of Sandy Lowery, wife of John Lowery of Applied Innovation. Anyone donating on the website can make a similar dedication to a loved one.
As we noted, this year’s charity is supporting the study of triple negative breast cancer. We like to approach our charitable efforts by citing someone who has been the victim of the disease being researched. We could not do so.
Instead, we thought of all the women who have fallen to cancer. The person who came to mind quickly was Sandy Lowery.
It has always been our hope that singling out a person many of us know to have lost their life to cancer gives us pause and causes us to reflect on such a tragedy that takes a person’s life and the sorrow it brings to that person’s family and friends.
Such a person is Sandra Lowery who was a victim of pancreatic cancer. Breast cancer and pancreatic cancer are linked to the BRCA gene mutation. Only 3% of those who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survive. The hope is that research in both areas will hasten the day when a cure is found for both.
Many of you knew Sandy as the wife of John Lowery Applied Innovation. We will begin this effort by giving $5,000 in her name. She succumbed to the scourge of pancreatic cancer. This donation comes from everybody who works for The Cannata Report to kick off the campaign.
She was a wife and mother to three children. She worked as a surgical nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Rapids. She was also an especially important member of the Applied Innovation team since its inception, working payroll for 35 years. She knew our business and those who collaborated with her loved her. We only met her once and you could see what a loving, kind, and thoughtful person she was. It is fitting that we honor her memory and make this campaign one of the best we have ever conducted.
I have linked “on our website” in the copy above to our HMHF website. Here is the URL for the website:
give.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/got/CannataReport2024
