Kabara family donates another $1.5 million to Gundersen for cancer research

Betty Kabara says doctors have saved
her life more than once while battling disease

Betty Kabara said it best as to why she’s donating $1.5 million for cancer research to Gundersen Health System.

“More than two years ago the great doctors here, saved my life,” the 73-year-old Galena, Ill., woman said. “Not once, but twice, due to two different cancers. I feel certain I would not be here without them.”

This is the second huge donation from the Kabara family, which donated $1 million to establish the Kabara Cancer Research Institute in 2008. 

It was in between those donations that Betty Kabara needed cancer treatment. 

Betty’s husband, Jon, decided when he was just 7 years old, he would become a doctor and do cancer research, after losing a relative to the disease.

Jon died five years ago, and Betty is now being treated for head and neck cancer, so she wants to keep the local research going.

The funding could help lead to new knowledge about ovarian, lung and prostate cancer.