Our story begins more than seven years ago with a daughter and a dream. After losing her mother to Pancreatic Cancer in 2001, Jen Brouwer wanted to honor her mother’s memory by helping families who, like her and her mother, felt many emotional and financial hardships while facing the cancer battle.
While caring for her mother. Jen learned first hand that money saved for college tuition can quickly deplete to help pay for costly cancer treatments and hospital stays. Once that money is gone, many times the dreams of attending college are lost as well.
In 2007, Jen founded the Janet Phleger Foundation to give hope to those in need of financial support. Our mission is to help lighten the financial burden of higher education by providing scholarships to graduating seniors in Lucas County whose parent or guardian has battled cancer.
Over the past 7 years, we have raised more than $62,000 and helped 23 Lucas County seniors with their college tuition. Our main event, Costumes for Cancer, is an annual family celebration where we honor the year’s scholarship recipients and raise money for our future beneficiaries.