Category: Champion Spotlight

“There was just something about Gilda’s Club that really stood out to me,” shares Nina Braovac, the Amy Nickles Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) volunteer award winner for 2025. She started her involvement at Gilda’s Club in October 2022, at Noogiefest, our Halloween social. She’d heard about the need for volunteers through…

Volunteer and donor Gerry Klump makes sure Gilda’s Club is here for all Gerry Klump is a familiar face around Gilda’s Club. You may have seen him volunteer at a program event, at Gilda’s Run/Walk with his entire family, at the Red Door Society Appreciation event, or at Gilda’s Backyard BBQ. Like many folks who…

Wayne Harris has been a driving force behind Gilda’s Club for over 18 years. “This is an organization that people support. They won’t let it go away,” he shares. You might know Wayne through his company, 6AM Marketing, or from his leadership on nonprofit boards across Madison, including Ronald McDonald House and the American Red…

“When I first started attending Gilda’s Club in 2009, I was newly diagnosed with breast cancer,” shares Jamie Steckelberg, the Amy Nickles Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) Award Winner for 2024. Jamie first came to Gilda’s Club as a member, attending Family Night with her partner and their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Jamie’s connection…

Barbara and Norm Berven’s love story began in an unexpected way: after they both experienced losses due to cancer.  Barbara lost her first husband, Bernie, to multiple myeloma in 2008. Norm’s first wife, Stella, was a good friend of Barbara and supported her through both her first husband’s diagnosis and after he passed. Later, when…

Like many Gilda’s Club volunteers and supporters, Lisa has a personal connection to cancer. Her mom is a two-time breast cancer survivor, but before her mother’s diagnosis, her family experienced childhood cancer. Her younger brother Jeffrey was diagnosed with brain cancer when he was just 9 years old and Lisa was 11.  “My family had…

Like many of our supporters and volunteers, Kathleen Kelm has been personally touched by cancer. Her mother was diagnosed with childhood cancer back in 1935. Back then, the treatment for cancer was to place radium directly onto her cancerous lump. “That was what they did back then,” Kathleen explains.  “There were no support systems,” Kathleen…