MVH: News & Events, Family Fights Back by Helping Other Mon Valley Cancer Patients

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News & Events

Calendar of Events

Family Fights Back by Helping Other Mon Valley Cancer Patients

Shown, from left to right, presenting the check from the Jereme Dudzinski Foundation to MVH's Mon-Vale Oncology Manager Bonny Holmes are Jonathan Dudzinski, his mother-in-law Linda Vernet and his mother Marie Dudzinski, who is holding Jonathan's son, Nathan, age 2. They all live in Belle Vernon. The family is shown with more than 40 cases of Ensure, which their donation will help underwrite. Bonny Holmes, who oversees the Ensure Fund, said 40 cases will last about two weeks or less.

(June 4, 2015 - Carroll Township, Pa.)

A local family impacted by cancer has pulled together to help others in the Mon Valley fighting the battle. They recently donated $500 to Monongahela Valley Hospital's Charles L. and Rose Sweeney Melenyzer Pavilion and Regional Cancer Center for its Ensure Fund.

Jonathan Dudzinski lost his brother Jereme to testicular cancer at age 32 on Nov. 27, 2013. The family presented a check recently from the Jereme Dudzinski Foundation.

The donation will support the Regional Cancer Center's Ensure fund. In 2012, MVH staff members began raising money to provide these vital nutritional supplements to cancer patients at no cost.

"We formed the foundation for Jereme in January; friends and family thought 'what better way to remember him than by helping others, as he often did,'" said Mr. Dudzinski. "Our goal is to help cancer patients in the Valley who need financial assistance due to their cancer. After our first successful golf outing (on May 30), our board of directors is now focusing on other fundraisers to be planned throughout the year."

Jonathan's mother-in-law Linda Vernet, is a two-time breast cancer survivor who lost her husband Joseph on Feb. 13 to lung cancer. He was treated at MVH's Regional Cancer Center and she is still receiving treatment.

"My late husband received free Ensure as a patient and he thought it was just the greatest thing," said Mrs. Vernet.

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